DEMONSTRATION

 

Romans 5:8 / Amplified Bible (AMP)
But God shows and clearly proves His [own] love for us by the fact that while we were still sinners, Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One) died for us.

I never want to tire of seeing and understanding the nature of God. Each day is new. Each day I wake up I am jazzed about what God may show me today. Each day is an opportunity to know God better as He reveals Himself to me.
Sometimes it comes as I read my Bible. A verse just king of "boings" up off the page and catches my attention. Wow! I never read that before.....or.....That is what I needed for what I am struggling with. Sometimes it happens in conversation with someone else. They will say something that connects with your spirit...a knowing...an assurance that God has spoken to reveal Himself to you.

KJV  says that God "demonstrates" his love for us. That means that there is action to what God holds dear. He can't simply come up with good and holy ideas that then keep them to  Himself. He puts legs (or angels) to his plan and demonstrates before us His truth. Every day in the fallen world filled with blind and deaf people (Of which I use to be on) God is speaking and demonstrating and revealing and showing. It isn't a desperate measure on His part, NO! IT is a heart of love for his creation to see it redeemed from the mess that sin brought in.

S0, what did God show me today?
He showed me that He loves us so much, even when we are completely in rebellion that He will turn us loose to pursue the very thing that is not good for us. You may be saying, "Well,that doesn't sound like love to me." It not the kind of love that we see much in this world. Oh, it's out there but you have to ask God to give you vision so you can see it. God knows that sometimes the best thing for us is to let rebellion run its course so we can get skint up pretty good. God is always faithful and ready to heal us, love us and take us back when we cry out to Him. Not just for help but for HELP!!!! You know the prayer. I'm sure some of you have prayed it.....it goes like this. "Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, Oh God." God hears that prayer and He comes to take back and destroy the works of the devil in our lives. He replaces all the cruddy stuff with all the God stuff. You know, clean us up and fill us up with His Holy Spirit. Bam! Live is back on track.

I had to let someone go today. I knew that this was a decision they were going to make. Funny part is, they knew it was a bad choice and I knew it was a bad choice, but they chose anyway.  So I love them and let them go. I have prayed over this individual and know that he now resides in the hand of God. I pray that he will wake up and turn back from the direction he is headed in. I trust God to watch over and take care of this person and that there are things that God has planted in the heart of this person that will produce good fruit at some point in the future.

I don't have to have all the answers to life's mysteries.
I just have to know God.
Case closed. Oh yeah...one last thing. This "knowing of God' isn't an intellectual pursuit. It is a massive collision of God's Spirit with my messy, sinful life that produces a gigantic explosion. I have been changed. I know it because God told me so. That I'll take.

God on you....
mb

ABOVE AND BEYOND THE RAINBOW

 

There is a hope that is higher than what the world can give us....
It is a hope that brings life right here.....right now .
Hope that invades the darkest places of a human heart and lifts it above the muck and mire that sin-darkness brings.

It is hope wrapped in a promise given by One who will never break His promises.
Hope that lifts our vision above our current condition.
Hope that fills our hearts in the middle of our current circumstances.
Hope that is divine...
Hope that is pure....
Hope that lays hold of us, as we lay hold of it.

It is a hope that will never be defeated by cancer...
Never defeated by addiction....
Never defeated by death...
It is a hope that is divinely inspired in the heart of One who stands unchallenged.
Hope that came forth at the dawn of creation when all the "LET THERE BE"'s were spoken.

The world tries to offer hope, but the flavor offered is bland and empty.
It's like carnival food....
No redeeming quality so ever, except to satisfy for a moment only to leave you empty and starving for something real.
The hope that I that I speak of was bought and paid for on a hillside. A place that wasn't covered in flowers or butterflies...No it was a place of pain and the air was filled with the cries of men on their way to die.  But yet, here in this awful place, Divine Hope was birthed and offered to a lost world.

This Divine Hope was stretched out upon a rough-hewn Roman cross.
This Hope was nailed to the wood by spikes....
Lifted high and dropped low for all the world to see.
In spite of the insults and names hurled at this Hope, it retaliated with the words, "Father! Forgive them, for they know not what they do."
The Hope I speak of was signed, sealed and delivered with three words.....
IT....
IS....
FINISHED!

Those very words are as powerful today, as they were when they were spoken.
The One who died on this cross...
The One who stepped from a tomb into the light of a new day....
Is the very One who powers the hope I've written about.
Hope has a name...
That name is Jesus....

You may be thinking that "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" is an unusual song to be attached to the word hope, but it isn't.
You see, the individual singing the song in the video accompanying today's blog is Danny Daniels...
Danny has made several trips to be with us at Gadsden Vineyard, and with each trip, he would always come out to Rapha to play for the men (Rapha is an in-house treatment program for those in addiction). 

The last time Danny was at Rapha, he played this song....
I watched the presence and power of God melt hearts as Danny sang.
Men who had not cried in years, were openly weeping as we all followed Danny through this song of hope.
I can't explain the "how" or "Why" of what happened that night. I just know that for a brief moment, in the lives of men who had been trapped in darkness....the light, love and presence of God broke through, bringing hope where before than wasn't any.

It was an incredible night...
One that I will never forget...
Thank you Danny Daniels for your heart, your voice, and your life.
You led us to a place far beyond and above any rainbow, and showed us the hope that only God can bring to those who are hungry to change.

God on you...
mbb

ONE VERSE BIBLE STUDY

 

A catching up of what is going on at the ReCovery Church on Broad Street.

THE "REAL" INDEPENDENCE DAY

 Today our nation will celebrate Independence day. The time when our forefather's stood up and said, "No longer will be held under the thumb of a corrupt ruler and system. We will declare our independence to choose our own destiny...to live under a system of government that was given by the people, of the people and for the people.

Today we should also give heed to another independence that was given to us. We did not have to fight for it, or go to war. The independence I speak of was provided to all by and event that took place outside the city of Jerusalem and ended with an empty tomb. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ didn't just shape the destiny of a country. It affected the entire world as generation after generation were afforded to freedom that can only come through the shed blood of Christ.

Christ not only paid a sin-debt you and I owed but brought us into a new way of living that the world can never truly understand. Jesus empowered us through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit so that we could move through this sinful word and not be tainted again by the stain of sin. You will never hear the kingdom of Satan speak of "Forgiveness"..."Repentance"....."Mercy"....or "Grace". Such things are foreign to our enemy. They rely on guilt, shame, depression, painful memories of our past. If they can keep our thoughts and mind anchored in such muck and mire, then they can stop us from chasing and following Jesus.

We read in Galatians 5:1- "Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage."

The first thing that catches my eye in the verse from Galatians, is that it is Christ who has MADE US FREE. He didn't just offer us freedom. He did a work that went beyond our outward behavior, and changed our very heart and the way we view life. His freedom is unlike anything this world has seen. But there is also a warning if we are not vigilant in keeping our freedom. We are not to be entangled...tied us...wrangled by sin again. We keep watch over our thoughts and our heart, making sure that we are focused on Christ. There are only two yokes in this old world. #1 -  Satan's yoke that he will use to guide you to destruction. A yoke that is heavy and will beat you to the ground.....and #2 - The yoke of Christ which is light and easy to carry...no burden at all. I think I would choose the second one.

So on this day of celebration of our independence, make sure you take the time to think on what Christ has done for each of us that has afforded us a life now (and after we pass from this world). 

Think on these things...

God on you...

michael b.

A WAY THAT SEEMS RIGHT

I have found that the best way to approach life as a follower of Christ is for us  to recognize how powerless we are because of our dependency on outside influence, be it alcohol or drugs or whatever, to manage the day to day affairs of our life. Living this way really puts the skids on what you and I would refer to as good judgment. The inability to control and make good decisions is only complicated by the fact that in our own minds we don't want to admit to this behavior. We are doing fine. We are just having some set backs. Set backs? We haven't seen these kind of set backs since Uncle Harry refused to get on Cousin Noah's ark. There is a verse associated with this first step and it is found in Proverbs 14:12....
There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.


Do you see this? Did you catch that verse? There is a way.........a behavior........an attitude that seems right....its seems socially acceptable..........it appears to make all the sense in the world........but the end result of this way, this decision is headed to only one place.......death, both physically and spiritually. Let's move on!


If we had stopped here at this first step, that would be a pretty hopeless place to pitch our tent. I am grateful that this first step is only the beginning. Each step builds on the other which takes us out of and above our dependencies. So now that I've admitted I am powerless and that my life is unmanageable, what next?


There must be someone or something that can aid me and help me with what seems like these insurmountable living problems I have created. Ahhh! There is help. The Calvary has arrived.
Step#2
We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

At the same place we admitted our inability, it is there we began the search (whether we were aware of it or not) to find an answer to our problems. Many of you may be reading this and think that it all sounds like mumbo jumbo or some kind of formula for self help. Nothing could be farther from the truth. If I have a problem and that problem is found within me, why would I think that the answer would also be inside me? You may be reading this and wonder what in the world am I talking about. Let me put it this way. You don't really have an alcohol/drug/dependency problem, you've got a living problem. You have a broken relationship with the one person who possesses the power to help you rise above all the destruction and pain created by your bad choices. That person is Jesus Christ. He is the power that can restore you to sanity. If I am in need of being restored to sanity, what does that say about my current state? It says that I am living a life of insanity. Insanity is the lack of ability to make sound decisions.

The answer to (this sounds so flippant but trust me, it isn't) all our problems is found in Jesus. Not the church, not some pastor (even though I am such an animal) but in Jesus. The church is where I go to hang out with people who are like me, kind of tore up from the floor up and looking to Jesus for the answers to my problems. Let's take a look at what we have so far.
We admitted, by that I mean we are brutally truthful to ourselves and those around us that we are powerless and not able to manage our own lives.

This powerlessness and inability to manage our own life has turned our focus from our self to looking for a power greater than us who can restore us to being able to make sound decisions.

Here are some verses that may help as you take this journey to a new beginning.

Philippians 2:13 - For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure

John 3:17 - For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him.

Luke 9:56 - For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them.

Mark 9:23 - And Jesus said to him, "If you can! All things are possible to him who believes.

May God richly bless you and lead you into truth...

Michael b.

 

SOUNDS OF THE MORNING

 

[Psalm 5:3] In the morning, Lord, You hear my voice. In the morning I lay my requests before You and wait expectantly.

Morning....early morning. The world has yet to awaken to this day that lies in front of us. When I say "the world" of course I mean the portion I live in. This day stretches out ahead filled with possibilities. But such always comes with a disclaimer. I can began today's journey simply following Jesus (Luke 9:23) or I can slide over into the driver's seat and take control of my own journey.  I can even convince myself that I can do so without running in the ditch or getting into a situation that doesn't require help from God on any level. How silly I am sometimes. 

To me, there is a great comfort found in the words of Psalm 5:3. The first one being that God is a listening God. Just as I am called to hear and know His voice (John 10:3-4), God knows the voice of those who are His. Those who have given themselves to His offer of salvation and have learned the "sound" of His voice. Sometimes I think I let the chaos and noise of this world over ride the voice of God. Or at least muddy the flood of sounds and voices to the point that it's hard for me to discern. Maybe that is why God says over and over, "Be still and know that I am God." 

That word "Know" is tied to the idea of "experiencing" God, rather than a collection of factoids and information. Knowing God....being still in His presence is reveals an intimate part of the relationship we have been invited into. Sometimes I think being busy is the best way to know God. He is speaking and I am running around doing stuff thinking that this reveals my love for Him. In fact, it is my opinion that He truly does desire us to BE STILL and just bask and rest in His love and presence.

As the years have piled up, morning has become my most favorite part of the day. Along with morning, I would add that the time just before I drift off to sleep would be a close second. Morning brings a freshness to the day that is in front of me. Just before I fall asleep, I get a chance to review the day and offer thanks to God for allowing me to navigate through the things I faced that day. 

May you find God this morning!

*************************************************************

Today will be our breakfast give-away at ReCovery Church. We will be serving until 9:30 a.m. or until the food runs out.

Next Saturday, July 9th, will be our next Night time meeting. 7 p.m. at the church, located downtown Gadsden on Broad street---between 4th and 5th streets. We will be having our second meeting in a series we call "ONE VERSE BIBLE STUDY". Come and join us.

God on you...

michael b.

TIME TO GET OFF THE ADDICTION TRAIN WRECK

 

Romans 1:21-22
Because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools.

The hard part of being in this recovery stuff is watching the self destruction of people.
To see them refuse to come to the knowledge and understanding of the truth about their situation. To watch them continue on that path to destruction, all the while trying to help them. A friend of mine told me one time, after dealing with an individual who was addicted, "You know, it shouldn't be this hard to help people!"  Wow, truth times ten...it shouldn't be this hard.

To me, it is the story of the rich, young ruler who came to Jesus all hyped up on religion. When confronted with the hard truth that God requires more than just going through some spiritual discipline, the young ruler walked away. The young man had checked off the list all the "to do's" that he thought was important. He neglected the "to be's". It was the change of heart and character that Jesus required. A giving of self to a new way of living, breathing, eating, sleeping and walking around. Jesus went right to the heart of this young man. "Go and sell all you have and give it to the poor, then come and follow me." The man could not. He was not willing to part with the comfort he'd found in this life. The very one he'd been looking for, the Messiah....the deliverer of Israel was standing right in front of him, telling what he needed to do and this man could not do it. He loved his comfort and position more than he desired to be saved. 

To someone in addiction, they want to call the shots when it comes to their life. They want to be the one who makes all the decisions that will affect them. Trouble is, their thinking has become muddled and their hearts darkened with the stain of sin. The twisted process of their thinking is what I refer to as "Addict-a-logic". It makes sense in the mind of the individual, but not to anyone else. Unless there is an intervention by the Spirit of God to this individual, there really isn't anything that can be done or said to them. Any attempt to reason will be met with resistance and twisted to fit the purpose of the one who needs help. All part of the train-wreck mentality that comes with the territory when your train is addiction. Example of addict-a-logic.
1.) I'm a user
2.) My using takes money
3.) I fall behind on my debt and my bills.
4.) I don't want to quit using
5.) I can't pay my bills.
6.) I decide that the easiest way for me to catch up on my bills is to gamble and win the big jackpot.
7.) I spend money I don't have to chase a pipe dream that will never come to fruition.
8.) I fall farther and farther behind.
9.) The depression and guilt and shame only fuels my addiction to use more.
10.) I jump the tracks and crash and burn.
11.) End of story - which usually includes either death, prison or some form of institutionalism. 

Sounds hopeless doesn't it?
Well, its not. And it is this daily battle that calls people to confront and pray and speak to the darkness that has become known as addiction. It is an opportunity to display the Power of God, the Higher Power the big book of A.A. speaks of, into the lives of those who are trapped.  Does everyone get it? No, they don't. But if we don't face this battle each day, then no one will. I'm telling you, there is nothing greater than when the Spirit of God awakens someone from their addiction and hope begins to grow in that individuals heart. You can watch the process move forward as time goes by. Every life does not have to be a train wreck waiting to happen. Some have found the Power and presence of Jesus, and have continued on down the tracks to their destination.

Funny to me that in the big book of A.A. there is a chapter entitled "There Is A Solution".
Do you think maybe I need to read that one?
Now that's some good stuff. Oh yeah...the solution has a name, and that name would be Jesus! The only Power great enough to change the human heart and take the individual out of a life of darkness and destruction.

Make it a good weekend...And one last thing. Tomorrow is "Breakfast Give-Away" at ReCovery Church so we won't be having a meeting. That will take place next week on July 9th. Hope to see you then...

michael b.