Friday, April 26, 2013

The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ

(Seed Sowers Christian Book Publishing House. http://www.seedsowers.com/)

Friday, April 26, 2013   Concluding Thoughts

There is a spiritual exercise that begins with the statement: “God loves you. God is head over heels, passionately in love with you. When God looks at you, which is all the time, God says, “Behold, my beautiful child, with whom I am delighted and upon whom my favor rests.”” The exercise then asks the question: “If you really believed that God loves you, how different would your life be?”

I thought about that exercise often as I read The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ.  The editors of this book merged the four Gospels into one narrative. The four Gospels of the Bible are theological narratives, told from the perspective of their authors. The Story of My Life . . . is one continuous story, told in the first person, as an autobiographical narrative. I could easily imagine Jesus sitting next to me, telling me the story of his life and I often thought about that spiritual exercise, “If you really believed that God loves you, how different would your life be?”

For the first-third of this book, I had some interesting times pondering that question. For the last two-thirds, the question changed to the declaratory statement: “How different is my life, because I believe!” Since my wife Cheryl’s breast cancer diagnosis in December 2012, her subsequent surgery and radiation treatments, my heart attack In January 2013 (the medical establishment calls it a “cardiac event’J) and subsequent cardiac bypass surgery, we have “proved Him o'er and o'er,” as the old Gospel song rings true,

“Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him!

How I've proved Him o'er and o'er!

Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus!

Oh, for grace to trust Him more!

'Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus

music by William J. Kirkpatrick and

lyrics by Louisa M. R. Stead.

It has been my experience in life that we are all in one of three places:  in a crisis, coming out of a crisis, or heading for a crisis. Henry Blackby, in his book, Experiencing God, says these challenges in life are always accompanied by a crisis of belief, because how we respond to the challenges reveals what we truly believe about the character of God.

Reading The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ, and writing these meditations, has reinforced my belief that every action God takes is motivated by His great love for us.  The promise of God is that He is using every circumstance in our lives for His good purpose of transforming us to become like Christ. (Romans 8:28-29) Our challenges in life may be different, but the reality of God’s love for us is unchanging. I believe this with every fiber of my being and my heart’s desire is for my daily life to reflect my experience of God’s faithfulness.

For me, this desire of my heart is realized by seeking the life in Christ as my way of life. I hope you will continue to follow Christ with me as I begin a new series of meditations next week.

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

Monday, April 29, 2013

"The Father of Jesus is very fond of me."