The Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out

February 28, 2019

The Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out

“As God’s partners, we beg you not to accept this marvelous gift of God’s kindness and then ignore it. For God says, “At just the right time, I heard you.    On the day of salvation, I helped you.” Indeed, the “right time” is now. Today is the day of salvation.”

2 Corinthians 6:1-2

Miles Stanford’s book, Principles of Spiritual Growth, is a collection of very compelling essays on the life in Christ. However, Stanford believes trying to teach these principles is pretty much a waste of your time unless people are like our dogs, Buster and Hershey, singing and dancing for their breakfast. If a person is not truly hungry for God, even starved for grace, the typical reaction to Stanford’s book is just ho-hum. The principles are laid aside to collect dust with all the other good books. But when time turns from chromos to kairos everything changes.

Chronos (or kronos) is a Greek word for time and refers to the time of day or the day of the week. Kairos is God’s time and refers to the right or opportune moment when the Word of God, like a seed planted in good soil, germinates, takes root, grows and begins to produce fruit. For me, kairos happened when I realized that "Because salvation is by grace through faith, I believe (I will be) among the countless number of people standing in front of the throne and in front of the Lamb, dressed in white robes and holding palms in their hands (see Revelation 7:9).” I know I will be a part of “the multitude who so wanted to be faithful, who at times, got defeated, soiled by life, and bested by trials, wearing the bloodied garments of life's tribulations, but through it all, clung to the faith.”

“"But, how?" we ask. Then the voice says, "They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb.”” (Brennan Manning, "The Ragamuffin Gospel - Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out" Multnomah, Portland 1990, page 29) Hallelujah and Amen! My friends, I very much agree with Brennan Manning that if this is not good news to you, you have never understood the gospel of grace.

Week in and week out, we hear sermons, read books and participate in small groups. Much of what we are exposed to stays in the realm of information and is filed away in the recesses of our memory, or simply forgotten. However, some of the information becomes inspirational; and we take time to process how it may influence our life. It seems that most of the time, even the information that turned inspirational stays in the process realm. But when we encounter a kairos moment, the information becomes inspirational and then becomes incarnational. Our lives change as God’s Word becomes flesh within us, and we experience a transformational moment. In that moment we see ourselves among the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out desperately in need of grace.

My Takeaway: I pray you will experience a kairos moment today, and that the Gospel of Grace, the furious longing of God for you, becomes incarnational in your life.

Sē’lah

Alex

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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.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Christ Is The Power Of God And The Wisdom Of God

February 27, 2019

Christ Is The Power Of God And The Wisdom Of God

It is foolish to the Jews, who ask for signs from heaven. And it is foolish to the Greeks, who seek human wisdom. So when we preach that Christ was crucified, the Jews are offended and the Gentiles say it’s all nonsense.

1 Corinthians 1:22-23

When the Jews anticipated a messiah, they were looking for one like King David who would lead a mighty army to restore the fortunes of Israel. A crucified Messiah didn’t fit their expectations. When the Greeks thought about a messiah they had in mind one like Plato. When the Apostle Paul met with the Greek philosophers on Mars Hill, they were amused by his description of a God who would humble himself and become flesh. A crucified in the flesh messiah didn’t fit their expectations.

Still today, many in our world are offended by Jesus. Still today, many in our world say the ways of Jesus are nonsense. We live in a time when more and more the Christian faith is being marginalized by the powerful. More and more the voices we hear in the mainstream media are of those who are offended by Jesus, or the voices of those who think the Christian faith is all nonsense. As I contemplate my place in this world, I am often drawn to the Apostle Paul’s magnificent prose on the Supremacy of Christ:

“Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, for through him God created everything   in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see— such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him. He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together. Christ is also the head of the church, which is his body. He is the beginning, supreme over all who rise from the dead. So he is first in everything. For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, and through him God reconciled  everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross” (Colossians 1:16-20)

My Takeaway: I raise my voice to the naysayers and proclaim with Paul, “. . . to those called by God to salvation, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24). Yes and Amen.

Sē’lah

Alex

<><  <><  <><  <><

(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.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Careful Choice

February 26, 2019

The Careful Choice

Choose today whom you will serve.

Joshua 24:15b

The High Priest Caiaphas made his decision: “It’s better that one man should die for the people” (John 18:14). There was much Caiaphas had to consider, but in the end he chose the ways of appeasement, expediency and traditionalism. Caiaphas, a very religious man, fooled most of the people. Most of the people thought he was right and picked Barabbas when offered the choice by Pilate.

Life is hard, but it is not complicated. All human interaction is a matter of contending ideas and points of view. The vast majority of decisions are made in favor of the one who presses the hardest, the one who refuses to compromise, the one whose will to be right exceeds the others with whom he contends. Life becomes hard, not complicated, but hard, for the followers of Jesus when we have to decide whether we will stay in the arena and contend for our ideas.

Most of the time we can easily come to the decision that the issue isn’t that important, we don’t need to be seen as in the right; we can walk away. Or instead of walking away, we can exercise Godly wisdom and apply Covey’s Seven Habits and take a win/win stance. We can model listening to understand and graceful synergy to find answers that were hidden while all were contending to be right.

There will be other times when we cannot walk away. There will be times when we will stand shoulder to shoulder with Joshua and say, “But as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15c). Caiaphas may have thought he was serving the Lord, but he compromised his mission from God and chose to work out the meaning of his life with a secular agenda to maintain power and influence.

My Takeaway: This is where life is hard, not complicated, but hard. We all struggle with the meaning of our existence. Let us take care with our choices and choose not to follow after Caiaphas and miss life from God.

Sē’lah

Alex

<><  <><  <><  <><

(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.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

All Because Of You

February 25, 2019

All Because Of You

“Yahweh your God is there with you, the warrior-Saviour. He will rejoice over you with happy song, he will renew you by his love, he will dance with shouts of joy for you,”

Zephaniah 3:17 (NJB)

Worship leader and song writer Dennis Jernigan, in the Introduction to his CD “Break My Heart O God” (1995), included his interpretation of Zephaniah 3:17. First, here is Zephaniah 3:17 from the King James Version of the Bible:

“The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.”

Next, here is Jernigan’s paraphrase of Zephaniah 3:17:

"The eternal self-existent God, the God who is three in one, He who dwells in the center of your being is a powerful, valiant warrior. He has come to set you free, to keep you safe and to bring you victory. He is cheered and He beams with exceeding joy and takes pleasure in your presence. He has engraved a place for himself in you and there He quietly rests in His love and affection for you.

He cannot contain Himself of the thought of you and with the greatest of joy spins around wildly in anticipation over you and has placed you above all other creations and in the highest place in His priorities. In fact He shouts and sings in triumph, joyfully proclaiming the gladness of His heart in a song of rejoicing.

All because of you."

Do you honestly believe that God shouts and sings in triumph, joyfully proclaiming the gladness of His heart in a song of rejoicing, all because of you? I need to be reminded of this glorious truth of grace often. Even though I have embraced this wonderful affirmation, there are days when I don’t act like it is true. I yearn for the days when my life will be evidenced by an uninterrupted serenity and compassionate attitude toward myself that is a reflection of God’s own tenderness for me.

My Takeaway: Until then, I will often return to Zephaniah’s powerful affirmation. Today, join me and take time to rest in the wonder of God’s affection for you:

"He shouts and sings in triumph, joyfully proclaiming the gladness of His heart in a song of rejoicing. All because of you."

Sē’lah

Alex

<><  <><  <><  <><

(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.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.