Luke 24:1. At the crack of dawn on Sunday, the women came to the tomb carrying the burial spices they had prepared. 2. They found the entrance stone rolled back from the tomb, 3. so they walked in. But once inside, they couldn’t find the body of the Master Jesus. 4. They were puzzled, wondering what to make of this. Then, out of nowhere it seemed, two men, light cascading over them, stood there. 5. The women were awestruck and bowed down in worship. The men said, “Why are you looking for the Living One in a cemetery? 6. He is not here, but raised up. Remember how he told you when you were still back in Galilee 7. that he had to be handed over to sinners, be killed on a cross, and in three days rise up?” 8. Then they remembered Jesus’ words. 9. They left the tomb and broke the news of all this to the Eleven and the rest. 10. Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them kept telling these things to the apostles, 11. but the apostles didn’t believe a word of it, thought they were making it all up. 12. But Peter jumped to his feet and ran to the tomb. He stooped to look in and saw a few grave clothes, that’s all. He walked away puzzled, shaking his head. -“The Message”
Aren’t you glad we are not puzzled anymore? Praise you lord for the freedom you restored us to. May we never take your sacrifice for granted.
Psalms 15
1. God, who gets invited to dinner at your place? How do we get on your guest list?
2. “Walk straight, act right, tell the truth.
3. “Don’t hurt your friend, don’t blame your neighbor;
4. despise the despicable. “Keep your word even when it costs you,
5. make an honest living, never take a bribe. “You’ll never get blacklisted if you live like this.”
When I first heard this term it was reference to my workouts. SAID works in that let’s say I am beginning a workout and I run a mile each day netting seven miles a week. My body will begin to change as I implement the workout but that change will stop as my body hits a plateau or rather, adapts to the imposed demand of the seven miles. In order to get my body back to changing I will have to do something different like run 1.5 miles a day and therefore increasing my weekly mileage.
How do we apply this to all aspects of our lives and not just our exercise routine? Our life for the most part, is continually adapting to the imposed demands we place on it. If you want a different career, then you must impose demands on your life that are different than those you currently have. You will have to impose the demands of learning new skills, revamping your resumé, networking and you get the picture it’s all about change. To get a different result you have to impose new changes.
Could it be that our lives are stuck in situations that we say are out of our control because our specificity has not been demanding enough for change to actually occur? While we are great at pointing the finger at situations, people and circumstances the choices are ultimately ours to make and the demands we place on our lives whether too many or not enough are of our own doing.
I found myself a month or so ago looking at a sore spot in my life. They happen to everyone but I had asked someone who I consider to have a better perspective on this thing I was going through to hold me accountable for my part in this deal. I wrote down every single feeling, appropriate or not and every action and reaction again appropriate or not and let it all be bare before the person I had chosen to be accountable to. There wasn’t much feedback in the way of words but prayer I know was happening. Something happened in the writing of it all I realized that the problem wasn’t going away; I had to change my mind about things. I had to impose demands on myself rather than adapt. I had to determine that my problem was mine to fix. I could not change the adaptation on the part of others and their imposed demands on their life but I could change mine. That is, after all, the only thing required of me.
Transformation in its truest form is about changing the demands placed on the situation. It seems quite simple but actually it’s a daily commitment to change. Just like my workout had gotten stale so had my perspective on this area of my life. Anything and I do mean anything that requires a different result in your life must be met with new imposed demands. Those demands will need to be changed again and again as muscles in that area of your life are torn down and rebuilt bigger and better.
The average person has 60,000 thoughts per day. This is an incredible number of thoughts yet the facts are that normally we have the same perspective day after day. To change our lives we must change the thoughts. Impose those thoughts that will propel you forward instead of those which cause you to adapt. Making small changes in your thoughts daily will eventually create specificity to the new shape of things in your life.
Pastor Susan 