What thing or things in life do you allow to stop you in the process? What I mean is when you are set on track to walk forward (generally speaking) what stops you in your tracks? These occasional "stops" are really detours to your path, they are blockages that mean to distract you and keep you from completion. When you call it what it is some sense of seriousness hits, a big revelation or eye opener if you will. What things in your life are "completion stoppers"?
I know for myself, I start things all the time, but rarely do I finish all those things. Now some things are not meant to be completed, but only serve the purpose of bringing inspiration to expand upon. These are stepping stones to completion of something as a whole. However, if we look deeper into our lives how many times can we honestly see where there are uncompleted things, unfinished projects, things we have laid or set aside to come back to, never having come back to them? We presume to think we have all the time in the world when reality is we don't really "HAVE" the next moment. We cannot foretell the events moment to moment let alone foresee the actual outcome of the later in life. We must live in the NOW and walk in the KNOW while we do it.
I have some what of a paradox complex for you though...we must live in the NOW but KNOW that the things of this world are only temporal. Eternity awaits us after this life...Heaven or Hell, based on who you choose to serve and follow. You may choose no one but in reality any choice other than Christ is against Christ and all that is against Christ is of this world which Satan rules....so looks like it boils down to only the 2 choices...Lol! We must be eternity minded while we live in the NOW...an interesting concept that we do not do naturally but have to make a conscious effort to continually and daily walk in...probably a good example of "walking after the spirit" as the bible calls us to.
(Galatians 5:17 "For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would." This is the war that we all face every day. It can be accurately described as a tug of war. The soul is in the middle. The flesh is pulling on one side, and the spirit on the other. The strongest will win.)
The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death. God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn't deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that. The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for but we couldn't deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us. Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them--living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn't pleased at being ignored. But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won't know what we're talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells--even though you still experience all the limitations of sin--you yourself experience life on God's terms. It stands to reason, doesn't it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he'll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ's! So don't you see that we don't owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There's nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God's Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go! This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?" God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what's coming to us--an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with him! That's why I don't think there's any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what's coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens. All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We're also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy. Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good. God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun. So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn't hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn't gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God's chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us--who was raised to life for us!--is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ's love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture: They kill us in cold blood because they hate you. We're sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one. None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I'm absolutely convinced that nothing--nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable--absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.
I really love this message from Paul in Romans 8. This is The Message version. It's so stirring. I hope you are stirred as you read it. God's word is truly amazing!!!
I will end here and leave you with a little bit about me...
SO here it is folks....ya wanna know??? Hahaha!
1. I'm a multidimensional melancholy so please don't try to figure me out...I know which moment I'm in so we're good!
2. I'm a "Worshiper" NOT a singer! Don't put me in a box! I do what I do because it's how I pour out my heart to God and lead people into His presence, and speak through my actions my belief's in who He is and my love for Him. I'm not afraid to raise my hands in the middle of the street, the mall, the store, wherever and declare my love for God. I will shout it out, sing it loud, and try to use all the opportunities I can to GLORIFY HIS NAME!!!
3. I am a "Work-In-Progress" ever changing, ever growing, ever maturing in who God has called me to be, pushing forward, moving ahead, going for the Gold, and living for Him!
Woohoo...later guys and gals! :)
3. I am a "Work-In-Progress" ever changing, ever growing, ever maturing in who God has called me to be, pushing forward, moving ahead, going for the Gold, and living for Him!
Woohoo...later guys and gals! :)
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