I saw a beautiful photo of a field and a river in the daily devotional on 365Promises.com for today.
Psalm 23:2 Devotional for January 13, 2014
Seeing the photo triggered the following thoughts:
Oh! So peaceful and inviting . . . reminds me of where we grew up . . . the rivers and streams of northern Illinois . . .
Thank you, Lord for all the ways you nurture us and give us rest.
Have you ever thought about what it means that the Lord renews your soul?
When I was studying for the doctorate of ministry I was kind of surprised to hear in a systematic theology class (theology AND philosophy together . . . lots of headaches) that a systematic theologian in Germany had come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as a soul. I felt so sorry for him, and have been praying ever since that he would allow the Lord to restore his soul and come to understand what souls are.
We were once part of the spirit of God, the Creator. Our spirits have existed eternally. When we became incarnate our souls came into being along with our earthly, material selves which are not separate from our souls and spirit, but intimately connected. We have life on Earth so that our spirits and the material part of our being can train up our eternal souls to know God. This comes from the interactions we have we people we know on Earth and because of how we react to all that happens to us.
The intimate relationship we have with the Creator -- Father, Son and Holy Spirit -- helps us become who we have been fully created to be. Creation is finite . . . our bodies, the Earth and everything in the universe that has come into existence. Only the Spirit of God -- Creator, Word (logos) and Spirit have always been and will always be. But when our souls come to know God while we live on Earth, we make a conscious transition from the finite to the infinite.
How this happens is a mystery, but we know that it does when God's Holy Spirit gives us the ability to be open to God Who Is Spirit, God Who Is Love through Jesus Christ. Just as the Father/Creator and the Spirit/Sustainer became incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth -- the Christ . . . and the Infinite became finite, lived, grew, changed in the material, interacted with all the people in His life and experienced life as a finite physical being. The Holy Spirit-- the Spirit of God -- taught Jesus' incarnate soul to be in an ever deeper relationship with God the Creator who He as a man came to understand was also His Father in Heaven.
When Jesus became an adult and responded to God's call on His life, He was baptized and then took up His mantle as a prophet and teacher. At the time set up before the beginning of Creation, He was given the choice of offering Himself up as the perfect, holy sacrifice to reconcile and cleanse Creation. His life of teaching, healing and casting out demons made obvious the signs that He was from God to all who had eyes to see and ears to hear . . . and the willingness to believe.
The faithful followers of the God Who IS and Who WILL BE were taught and practiced, sins and transgressions could only be forgiven and washed away when a perfect living being was sacrificed in the place of the sinner. Healing only came from being washed with the blood of the sacrificed animal after ritual cleansing with water and prayers for forgiveness were ritually practiced.
Throughout the time of Jesus' ministry and proclamation of the Good News that the Reign of God had come down from Heaven and was being established on Earth, the religious, political and military leaders who had been concerned about his affect on the people living in poverty, misery and oppression finally had enough of him. The final straw that broke the camel's back came when Jesus raised his friend Lazarus from the dead after Lazarus' body lay for four days in the tomb.
The earthly religious, political and military leaders decided to execute Jesus.
Even though Jesus knew that He would be crucified, He went to Jerusalem for the most sacred observance of His people. After being proclaimed King of the Jews and entering through the gates of the Holy City on a young colt as was prophesied more than 800 years earlier, Jesus spent the days of purification and examination teaching in the Temple. Lazarus and his sisters lived on the road to the gate that Jesus entered triumphantly and people saw with their own eyes that he was indeed alive. Thsoe who had mourned his passing, wrapped his body in grave cloths and were present when Jesus called him out of his tomb were eye-witnesses to the most wonderful wonder of all bar one.
And that most wonderful wonder was when Jesus Himself rose from the dead after the crucifixion without help from anyone. For fifty days after His resurrection, Jesus was in communion with His beloved family members, friends and followers. And at the time decided upon by God and the Heavenly Host before the beginning of creation, Jesus ascended into Heaven to sit at the right hand of God His Father and our Father, the Creator of the Universe, of everything seen and unseen.
Because of Jesus' incarnation, life, suffering, death and resurrection -- and because He sent His Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God to be with people on Earth on the fortieth day after Jesus' ascension each person on Earth has the opportunity to live forever in the peace, joy and love of God. All each person has to do is to receive what already belongs to her or him by believeing in the Good News that God reconciled all of Creation through Jesus the Messiah (or Christ).
The perfection of Creation was broken as a result of the disobedience of Adam and Eve -- our original parents -- and continually made broken over and over by all the other sins committed by every person who ever lived on Earth, except Jesus. When the angels proclaimed "Peace on Earth," they were announcing that at the moment of Jesus' birth all of Creation was made whole. During Jesus lifetime as a human being, He showed everyone he met that He came from God. Those that had ears to hear and eyes to see -- whose hearts were open to receive faith -- came to believe that He is the Son of God -- and indeed God Himself.
So just as each one of us is spirit that has become incarnate and has a soul that will exist forever in some mysterious way . . . God the Creator/God the Reconciler/God the Sustainer -- Father, Incarnate Son and Holy Spirit are the first forms of that reality. But you can only come to know and believe all that by the power of the Holy Spirit and through your willingness to accept it all.
You are a unique individual created by God for God's sake. You were created so that God could love and bless you. You became incarnate so that your infinite spiritual self could come to fullness with your material finite self and so that your eternal soul -- the absolute essence of your self would be able to choose whether to be in loving relationship with the fullness of love forever or not. If your soul chooses to turn its back on the light, life and love that exists in the fullness of God, you will have chosen to live in darkness for eternity.
God Who IS Love does not want this for anyone. You have been redeemed and reconciled to the Fullness of Love, your Creator. Everything has been made perfect again and Jesus died for all the sins you ever have committed, are committing and will commit. He died and took the sins of the whole world to hell and left them there. Jesus died to redeem all the sins done to you and to anyone in your family and to anyone in your nation by any individual and group, also. The redemption and reconciliation, purification and sanctification manifested by the incarnation, life, suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Messiah cannot be earned.
Salvation cannot be bought.
Life eternally lived in the Fullness of Love is a gift of God's Grace in Jesus Christ by the Power of the Holy Spirit.
Have you received it? If not will you please open your heart and your hands to allow the Lord Jesus to open your eyes to the redemption and abundant life that is already yours?
Please.
The Holy Spirit will help you. He reveals Jesus to us. He answers our questions. He resolves our doubts. We can have abundant life instead of mere existence through the way we live our lives in relationship with God the Creator, our Father; with Jesus who is also the Incarnate Word, His son, the one and only Messiah, the Redeemer of Creation and Reconciler of all human beings to God; and who is also the Holy Spirit, Comforter, Guide, Sustainer, and Sanctifier.
God never forces His Love on anyone even though He blesses people in many ways even when they haven't heard about Him and the Good News, even when they have chosen not to believe.
If you do not believe, do you know why? Many times people have just never heard the true Good News. Often they have been wounded since infancy and believe lies about themselves. Sometimes they have been abused spiritually by people who claim to know the love, peace, joy and grace of God in Jesus Christ. Sadly all sorts of people have experienced all of the above and more so that they have chosen passively not to believe, or even have succumbed to evil.
No matter what reasons you have and no matter what you have suffered or what you have done, God still loves you.
This love is not dependent on anything you say or do. You are loved by God because God created you to love you. Even if you do not know this truth, you are His. You were created in love and you are love. You belong to the Fullness of Love and in Love you live and move and have your being. You are light and you live in the Light that is Life.
Only perception seems to deny this
Ask to see properly. Do not believe the negative, cruel, death-producing messages that you have heard and lived out because of wounds and due to the evil that was done to you. That is over and even when you were being hurt, and even if you chose to do evil, God was with you and already knew how He would deliver you from the evil and oppression.
Through the gift of free will God allows you -- and each person -- to choose abundant life and light, joy, peace, mercy, forgiveness and love. Sadly each person is also able to choose to hurt people and to hurt herself or himself. Tragically people can succumb to evil and act out that evil in response to woundedness, illness and pain.
God is greater than all that is evil.
The Fullness of Love is able to deliver you and each person on Earth and beyond the Earth in Spirit from everything and everyone that harasses, harms and oppresses. In Jesus Christ, all sins have been paid for and death has been destroyed. Unless you learn that during your life on Earth, though, it will be difficult to choose life, light and love for eternity. God is able to do anything, so I am not saying the last choice will be yours forever.
Nevertheless, how you live your life here and now will always and forever be affected by whether or not you choose to believe that God loves you and to receive His grace.
So if you never have, please do.
If you have but lately . . . or for a long time, the truth no longer seems true and you feel far from love, grace and peace, please turn your heart to Him again.
You will never regret making the choice for Love, Light and Life. And when you do, you will find that you are coming home.
Please come home. Similar to what the guy in that motel commercial says, "The Light will be left on for you."
Psalm 23:2 Devotional for January 13, 2014
Seeing the photo triggered the following thoughts:
Oh! So peaceful and inviting . . . reminds me of where we grew up . . . the rivers and streams of northern Illinois . . .
Thank you, Lord for all the ways you nurture us and give us rest.
Have you ever thought about what it means that the Lord renews your soul?
When I was studying for the doctorate of ministry I was kind of surprised to hear in a systematic theology class (theology AND philosophy together . . . lots of headaches) that a systematic theologian in Germany had come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as a soul. I felt so sorry for him, and have been praying ever since that he would allow the Lord to restore his soul and come to understand what souls are.
We were once part of the spirit of God, the Creator. Our spirits have existed eternally. When we became incarnate our souls came into being along with our earthly, material selves which are not separate from our souls and spirit, but intimately connected. We have life on Earth so that our spirits and the material part of our being can train up our eternal souls to know God. This comes from the interactions we have we people we know on Earth and because of how we react to all that happens to us.
The intimate relationship we have with the Creator -- Father, Son and Holy Spirit -- helps us become who we have been fully created to be. Creation is finite . . . our bodies, the Earth and everything in the universe that has come into existence. Only the Spirit of God -- Creator, Word (logos) and Spirit have always been and will always be. But when our souls come to know God while we live on Earth, we make a conscious transition from the finite to the infinite.
How this happens is a mystery, but we know that it does when God's Holy Spirit gives us the ability to be open to God Who Is Spirit, God Who Is Love through Jesus Christ. Just as the Father/Creator and the Spirit/Sustainer became incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth -- the Christ . . . and the Infinite became finite, lived, grew, changed in the material, interacted with all the people in His life and experienced life as a finite physical being. The Holy Spirit-- the Spirit of God -- taught Jesus' incarnate soul to be in an ever deeper relationship with God the Creator who He as a man came to understand was also His Father in Heaven.
When Jesus became an adult and responded to God's call on His life, He was baptized and then took up His mantle as a prophet and teacher. At the time set up before the beginning of Creation, He was given the choice of offering Himself up as the perfect, holy sacrifice to reconcile and cleanse Creation. His life of teaching, healing and casting out demons made obvious the signs that He was from God to all who had eyes to see and ears to hear . . . and the willingness to believe.
The faithful followers of the God Who IS and Who WILL BE were taught and practiced, sins and transgressions could only be forgiven and washed away when a perfect living being was sacrificed in the place of the sinner. Healing only came from being washed with the blood of the sacrificed animal after ritual cleansing with water and prayers for forgiveness were ritually practiced.
Throughout the time of Jesus' ministry and proclamation of the Good News that the Reign of God had come down from Heaven and was being established on Earth, the religious, political and military leaders who had been concerned about his affect on the people living in poverty, misery and oppression finally had enough of him. The final straw that broke the camel's back came when Jesus raised his friend Lazarus from the dead after Lazarus' body lay for four days in the tomb.
The earthly religious, political and military leaders decided to execute Jesus.
Even though Jesus knew that He would be crucified, He went to Jerusalem for the most sacred observance of His people. After being proclaimed King of the Jews and entering through the gates of the Holy City on a young colt as was prophesied more than 800 years earlier, Jesus spent the days of purification and examination teaching in the Temple. Lazarus and his sisters lived on the road to the gate that Jesus entered triumphantly and people saw with their own eyes that he was indeed alive. Thsoe who had mourned his passing, wrapped his body in grave cloths and were present when Jesus called him out of his tomb were eye-witnesses to the most wonderful wonder of all bar one.
And that most wonderful wonder was when Jesus Himself rose from the dead after the crucifixion without help from anyone. For fifty days after His resurrection, Jesus was in communion with His beloved family members, friends and followers. And at the time decided upon by God and the Heavenly Host before the beginning of creation, Jesus ascended into Heaven to sit at the right hand of God His Father and our Father, the Creator of the Universe, of everything seen and unseen.
Because of Jesus' incarnation, life, suffering, death and resurrection -- and because He sent His Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God to be with people on Earth on the fortieth day after Jesus' ascension each person on Earth has the opportunity to live forever in the peace, joy and love of God. All each person has to do is to receive what already belongs to her or him by believeing in the Good News that God reconciled all of Creation through Jesus the Messiah (or Christ).
The perfection of Creation was broken as a result of the disobedience of Adam and Eve -- our original parents -- and continually made broken over and over by all the other sins committed by every person who ever lived on Earth, except Jesus. When the angels proclaimed "Peace on Earth," they were announcing that at the moment of Jesus' birth all of Creation was made whole. During Jesus lifetime as a human being, He showed everyone he met that He came from God. Those that had ears to hear and eyes to see -- whose hearts were open to receive faith -- came to believe that He is the Son of God -- and indeed God Himself.
So just as each one of us is spirit that has become incarnate and has a soul that will exist forever in some mysterious way . . . God the Creator/God the Reconciler/God the Sustainer -- Father, Incarnate Son and Holy Spirit are the first forms of that reality. But you can only come to know and believe all that by the power of the Holy Spirit and through your willingness to accept it all.
You are a unique individual created by God for God's sake. You were created so that God could love and bless you. You became incarnate so that your infinite spiritual self could come to fullness with your material finite self and so that your eternal soul -- the absolute essence of your self would be able to choose whether to be in loving relationship with the fullness of love forever or not. If your soul chooses to turn its back on the light, life and love that exists in the fullness of God, you will have chosen to live in darkness for eternity.
God Who IS Love does not want this for anyone. You have been redeemed and reconciled to the Fullness of Love, your Creator. Everything has been made perfect again and Jesus died for all the sins you ever have committed, are committing and will commit. He died and took the sins of the whole world to hell and left them there. Jesus died to redeem all the sins done to you and to anyone in your family and to anyone in your nation by any individual and group, also. The redemption and reconciliation, purification and sanctification manifested by the incarnation, life, suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Messiah cannot be earned.
Salvation cannot be bought.
Life eternally lived in the Fullness of Love is a gift of God's Grace in Jesus Christ by the Power of the Holy Spirit.
Have you received it? If not will you please open your heart and your hands to allow the Lord Jesus to open your eyes to the redemption and abundant life that is already yours?
Please.
The Holy Spirit will help you. He reveals Jesus to us. He answers our questions. He resolves our doubts. We can have abundant life instead of mere existence through the way we live our lives in relationship with God the Creator, our Father; with Jesus who is also the Incarnate Word, His son, the one and only Messiah, the Redeemer of Creation and Reconciler of all human beings to God; and who is also the Holy Spirit, Comforter, Guide, Sustainer, and Sanctifier.
God never forces His Love on anyone even though He blesses people in many ways even when they haven't heard about Him and the Good News, even when they have chosen not to believe.
If you do not believe, do you know why? Many times people have just never heard the true Good News. Often they have been wounded since infancy and believe lies about themselves. Sometimes they have been abused spiritually by people who claim to know the love, peace, joy and grace of God in Jesus Christ. Sadly all sorts of people have experienced all of the above and more so that they have chosen passively not to believe, or even have succumbed to evil.
No matter what reasons you have and no matter what you have suffered or what you have done, God still loves you.
This love is not dependent on anything you say or do. You are loved by God because God created you to love you. Even if you do not know this truth, you are His. You were created in love and you are love. You belong to the Fullness of Love and in Love you live and move and have your being. You are light and you live in the Light that is Life.
Only perception seems to deny this
Ask to see properly. Do not believe the negative, cruel, death-producing messages that you have heard and lived out because of wounds and due to the evil that was done to you. That is over and even when you were being hurt, and even if you chose to do evil, God was with you and already knew how He would deliver you from the evil and oppression.
Through the gift of free will God allows you -- and each person -- to choose abundant life and light, joy, peace, mercy, forgiveness and love. Sadly each person is also able to choose to hurt people and to hurt herself or himself. Tragically people can succumb to evil and act out that evil in response to woundedness, illness and pain.
God is greater than all that is evil.
The Fullness of Love is able to deliver you and each person on Earth and beyond the Earth in Spirit from everything and everyone that harasses, harms and oppresses. In Jesus Christ, all sins have been paid for and death has been destroyed. Unless you learn that during your life on Earth, though, it will be difficult to choose life, light and love for eternity. God is able to do anything, so I am not saying the last choice will be yours forever.
Nevertheless, how you live your life here and now will always and forever be affected by whether or not you choose to believe that God loves you and to receive His grace.
So if you never have, please do.
If you have but lately . . . or for a long time, the truth no longer seems true and you feel far from love, grace and peace, please turn your heart to Him again.
You will never regret making the choice for Love, Light and Life. And when you do, you will find that you are coming home.
Please come home. Similar to what the guy in that motel commercial says, "The Light will be left on for you."
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