GREENE STREET LETTERS: Keeping It Real

Monday, March 19, 2018

Keeping It Real

ENDURANCE

James 1:3-4
For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.

Whether we want to admit it or not, life has a way of pounding on you. When we think of the word endurance, we think of self-reliance.....our own strength.....our own talent and ability to rise above every situation that comes our way. While there are times we can get by on such self efforts, as a follower of Jesus, I am called to rely on HIS strength, HIS ability, and His power. To trust Him to the last uttermost limit.

Truth be known, endurance is faith that is tried almost to the breaking point. Endurance involves waiting and trusting, sprinkled with a heavy layer of Hope. I guess when we find ourselves in such places, we either trust God or we trust man. Is God truly My strength and my help.

Maybe endurance involves possessing this moment in time with patience. We wait until God reveals His plans for us. Reading on in the book of James, we read where the "testing of our faith is like Gold being refined. In such a process, the higher the heat, the purer the gold. I confess that today's words are easy to write, talk and think about......we will only find the truth of them when life tries to put us at odds with the Kingdom of God. When the ruler of this world slyly asks us...."Why don't you take matters into your own hands!" Don't fall for that line. Instead, wait....endure....persevere.....overcome.

God on you...
mbb

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Looking At The World Through Cracked Lens

As ol' Paul wrote in his Corinthian letters.."We see in part and we know in part." Now what piece of this bit of wisdom do we not get? I wish to not run around acting and trying to be some sort of Biblical G00-Ru (I meant to spell it wrong). Or a sage of sages.

I simply want to be able to communicate some of what God has given to me. Why? Do I think what I get is better than what you may have received from Him? Nope. But I do think encouragement comes when we share our daily story of struggle and victory in an effort to encourage each other.

Thanks for letting me share.

Time to soldier on..

mbb

Our Statement of Faith

We believe that God is the eternal king. He is an infinite, unchangeable Spirit, perfect in holiness, wisdom, goodness, justice, power and love. From all eternity He exists as the One Living and True God in three persons of one substance, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit equal in power and glory. we believe that God created mankind in His image, male and female, for relationship with Himself and to govern the earth. Under the temptation of Satan, our original parents fell from grace, bringing sin, sickness and God's judgment of death to the earth. Through the fall, Satan and his demonic hosts gained access to God's good creation. Creation now experiences the consequences and effects of Adam's original sin. Human beings are born into sin, subject to God's judgment of death and captive to Satan's kingdom of darkness. We believe that Jesus, God's Son, was sent to this world, conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin, Mary, fully God and fully man in one person. He is humanity as God intended us to be. Jesus was anointed as God's Messiah and empowered by the Holy Spirit, ushering in God's kingdom reign on earth, overpowering the reign of Satan by resisting temptation, preaching the good news of salvation, healing the sick, casting out demons and raising the dead. Jesus' atoning death on the cross took God's judgment for sin which we deserved as law-breakers. Jesus' resurrection and ascent back to heaven opened the door for those who received salvation to begin a relationship with God.

Little Nets Into Deep Waters

Fishing nets were designed for one purpose only. To catch fish. Nets are no good if they stay on the boat. Nets serve no purpose if they are never used. I think maybe God sees us this way. We are all created for a purpose (by the way, the creator gets to define what our purpose is). Any other use besides the one we were created for does us no good. But when the creator places His hands upon us, casting us out into those scary, dark places with deep waters, it is then we can see the reality of our purpose. He knew there would be a catch waiting for us. I think I will be the net God has called me to be.

The Twelve Steps

As a community of people in recovery, we affirm that our higher power is Jesus Christ. He did for us what we could not do for ourselves. Just as God told the children of Israel He was going to give them a promised land, He has revealed to us that He desires to give us a "Promised Life." When Israel got to the promised land, God instructed them to go and in a possess it, fight for it and claim it. In recovery, the 12 Steps are the directions given to us on how to fight, possess and claim this promised life.

Monday, March 19, 2018

Keeping It Real

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THE REALITY OF THE NAME OF GOD