Things That Make Me Go “Huh?”

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Some things are too hard for me to understand. Click Here.

LONDON – Parish priest Tim Jones says it’s OK to shoplift at times as long as you don’t take more than you need — but British police, retailers and clergy disagree.
Jones says people in desperate need may at times be justified shoplifting items from large chain stores. He serves a village in York 220 miles (355 kilometers) north of London.
He defended his comments Tuesday despite much criticism, saying society is wrong to ignore the desperate plight of many poor people.
The Archdeacon of York, Richard Seed, has released a statement saying the Church of England does not condone shoplifting. North Yorkshire Police have followed suit, pointing out that shoplifting is a crime.
The British Retail Consortium also condemned Jones’ views.

What do I Need? Part 2

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Ephesians 1:11-23 It’s in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone. It’s in Christ that you, once you heard the truth and believed it (this Message of your salvation), found yourselves home free – signed, sealed, and delivered by the Holy Spirit.
This signet from God is the first installment on what’s coming, a reminder that we’ll get everything God has planned for us, a praising and glorious life. That’s why, when I heard of the solid trust you have in the Master Jesus and your outpouring of love to all the Christians, I couldn’t stop thanking God for you – every time I prayed, I’d think of you and give thanks. But I do more than thank. I ask – ask the God of our Master, Jesus Christ, the God of glory – to make you intelligent and discerning in knowing him personally, your eyes focused and clear, so that you can see exactly what it is he is calling you to do, grasp the immensity of this glorious way of life he has for Christians, oh, the utter extravagance of his work in us who trust him – endless energy, boundless strength!
All this energy issues from Christ: God raised him from death and set him on a throne in deep heaven, in charge of running the universe, everything from galaxies to governments, no name and no power exempt from his rule. And not just for the time being, but forever. He is in charge of it all, has the final word on everything. At the center of all this, Christ rules the church. The church, you see, is not peripheral to the world; the world is peripheral to the church. The church is Christ’s body, in which he speaks and acts, by which he fills everything with his presence.-The Message

What Do I Need?

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During this season a question keeps getting asked of me. “What do you want for Christmas? What do you need?” Normally, I have a list of things people can buy. One Christmas I gave Casey the job of getting white Spa Towels, big and fluffy. I gave Anthony the job of getting a lip gloss from Bare Essentials, you get the picture. This year wasn’t an exception, I gave everyone their list but the question struck me this year in a different way.

Do any of us really know what we want? Do we understand what we need? I mean those of us who are followers of Christ say we need God, yet we come to him as our last resort. We try every other angle first and then come to God when nothing else is left to try. We raise our hands in service as an act of submission then go back to the chaos that leads our lives. Why is that? Do we believe in the chaos more than we believe in the Father?

This year I want and need for my home to serve the Lord. What I see is that many of us leave a legacy where God is unwelcome. What do we want? What do we need?

We enter relationships where we say we want one thing but then find that thing boring and move on to the more dangerous partner. The one who is unsettled, the one who is unprepared to receive us. Or is it that we are unprepared and unwilling to make a commitment to wait even if it means being alone?

Maybe the problem is we really have no idea what we want and we certainly have not conferred with anyone as to what we need. So we are tossed here and there by what sounds good to our ears at the moment. We go off chasing things we think we need so desperately only to find that it is unfulfilling. Only it didn’t meet the need we thought and we leave disappointed and ready to chase the next best thing.

Israel had a legacy of chasing whims until one day God said he’d had enough and stopped speaking. 400 years later we heard his voice in the sound a baby’s cry. We believe the story, we believe the salvation but we don’t know if we are ready to make that commitment. What if we aren’t happy with the results? What is happiness? What is the thing we are chasing? Do we even know anymore? Is a good enough life, good enough?

This year, I have to be honest. I need no material thing. I want no material thing. The Lord has spent this year talking to me about rest. I have changed a few things in my life to enjoy my life a little more but I have a long way to go. I know what I need and I know what I want and it’s nothing you can buy in a store. I want more Jesus this year. I want more time to spend time in relationships. You and I both know what will happen now. Things will come up left and right to make me take my eyes of the focus of what I need. We call those things the tyranny of the urgent. It will be up to me to stay focused. Just like an athlete I will have to train.

Enough about me, what is it that you need this year?

He Prepares A Table For Me

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When we think of preparing a table we think of a feast. That is exactly what this post speaks to. A feast with a variety of food, the best china and silverware and all the finest food that’s been elegantly prepared. Now stretch your mind a little and instead of seeing a feast of food, look at a feast of possibilities because all things are possible with God. God prepares a feast for you and your only mandate is to come and choose from among the endless possibilities. He prepares opportunities for your success and great surprises as well.

The man whom you choose should never be limiting. He should see the endless possibilities in himself and in you and should prepare an environment where those possibilities are able to thrive and come alive. He should not be the one who fills you wth doubt and he should not be the one who places limits on your potential. Instead he should be your greatest ally. He should be your best encourager.

That is not to say that he doesn’t steer you in the right direction as he has your best interest at heart. That is not to say that he won’t say no to certain things that are not beneficial to you. How will he know that? He is a man of God, a man who truly took the time to get to know you. He is a man who wasn’t only after sex but after a whole woman because he is a whole man. He is a man who knows what it means to be a husband, a man who has died out to his selfish desires as he looks after you.

And what is your role in all of this? You have prepared yourself. You’ve become the woman who is attractive to a man who isn’t carrying around baggage. You aren’t selfish, lazy or determined to sabotage a good relationship because you failed to recognize a whole man.

1 Corinthians – Christmas Version

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My Christmas Tree before the dogs decided to play tug 'o war with it.

First Corinthians- Christmas version

If I decorate my house perfectly with plaid bows, strands of twinkling lights and shiny tinsel, but do not show love to my family, I’m just another decorator.

If I slave away in the kitchen, baking dozens of Christmas cookies, preparing gourmet meals and arranging a beautifully adorned table at mealtime, but do not show love to my family, I’m just another cook.

If I work at the soup kitchen, carol in the nursing home, and give all that I have to charity, but do not show love to my family, it profits me nothing.

If I trim the spruce with colored lights and crocheted snowflakes, hang stockings on the mantel and attend a myriad of holiday parties, but do not focus on Christ, I have missed the point.

Love stops the cooking to hug the child.

Love sets aside decorating to kiss the husband.

Love is kind, though harried and tired.

Love doesn’t envy another’s home that has coordinated Christmas china and table linens.

Love doesn’t yell at the kids to get out of the way, but is thankful they are there to be in the way.

Love doesn’t give only to those who are able to give in return, but rejoices in giving to those who cannot.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails. Video games will break, pearl necklaces will be lost, golf clubs will rust.. But giving the gift of love will endure.

-Something to think about as we try to provide the “perfect” Christmas each and every year.
The stuff is forgotten but the memories of love, happiness, friends, and family will remain.

The Spirit Of The Wannabe

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In the bible there was a man named Adonijah who thought he was leadership material and announced it by taking over a kingdom. He had a few followers but the true leadership of the time wasn’t behind him. He took over without the blessing of King David who had promised the throne to Solomon.

1 Kings 1:5 Now Adonijah, whose mother was Haggith, put himself forward and said, “I will be king.” So he got chariots and horses ready, with fifty men to run ahead of him. 6 (His father had never interfered with him by asking, “Why do you behave as you do?” He was also very handsome and was born next after Absalom.) 7 Adonijah conferred with Joab son of Zeruiah and with Abiathar the priest, and they gave him their support. 8 But Zadok the priest, Benaiah son of Jehoiada, Nathan the prophet, Shimei and Rei and David’s special guard did not join Adonijah.

Because he never qualified for leadership, he was unseated rather quickly. Rather than take it like a man, he went to the King’s mother to complain that he had been unseated unfairly. In Adonijah’s own eyes he was owed something. So we find Adonijah complaining with the victim mentality of how he is now owed something and trying to make a deal he has no right even asking for.

1 Kings 2:13 Now Adonijah, the son of Haggith, went to Bathsheba, Solomon’s mother. Bathsheba asked him, “Do you come peacefully?” He answered, “Yes, peacefully.” 14 Then he added, “I have something to say to you.” “You may say it,” she replied. 15 “As you know,” he said, “the kingdom was mine. All Israel looked to me as their king. But things changed, and the kingdom has gone to my brother; for it has come to him from the Lord.

So there is nothing new here. It is the Spirit of the Wannabe and it struck a chord with me. Leadership always makes a place for itself. It can’t be faked. I have been a leader my whole life. Part of it is that I was a first born and so naturally bossy and a take-charge personality. A bigger part is a God-ordained gift. Pastor Doug laughs when I bring up the Spirit of the Wannabe and has added to the phrase, “Those that don’t wannabe leaders often are.” It’s true. Leaders naturally lead and others always see their ability.

The Wannabe tries to overtake a position without qualification. The Wannabe is the one crying loudly about how victimized they are and yet how much of a leader they are and how they would do things differently. They create chaos and in that chaos they try to overtake a position. True leadership makes a place for itself through natural talent, appropriately directed. Satan was an angel who had a gift of praise and worship and a position in a kingdom but like Adonijah he tried to forcibly take a position that wasn’t his. Satan was the first one with the Spirit of the Wannabe. He got a few followers but was not able to sustain it and he was unseated in quick order.

You see a true leader really doesn’t fail. The idea may not work but it doesn’t keep the leader stuck in a losing proposition for any length of time. The true leader gets up and tries again even when they don’t want to because their gift directs their path. They never need smoke and mirrors they just are. Leadership is natural but it still has to be developed to its full potential. This is where the Wannabe and the Leader part ways. The leader takes the time to develop skills, the wannabe fakes it saying phrases like “fake it till you make it”. Only the problem with that is authentic leadership doesn’t have to fake it, and wannabes never make it.

Broken

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A homeless man who is mentally ill and needs some warm clothes.

A welfare mom who was born to a welfare mom and doesn’t know any better.

A woman whose husband has left her, alone and afraid with small children and without income.

A person who knows how to work the system.

A drug addict who is looking for something to steal to sell for money for more drugs.

A pregnant woman who has no home.

A family who, due to the economy, has lost their home.

A person with excess who hasn’t learned to give.

A religious person who stands in judgment of it all.

A person who looks away because they are afraid.

A person who believes others owe them something.

A teen who feels entitled because all of her life she’s been told she is princess.

A cheater who thinks others don’t know.

A person who can never get enough because of their poverty mindset.

A smooth operator.

A person who points fingers at everyone but themselves.

I meet these people every day in my ministry. They all have one thing in common. They are broken. For whatever reason, for whatever circumstance, they are broken. Powerful in their original design by the Father but life has taken its toll.

Everyone to an extent is chipped and fragmented. Some hide it better than others, others insist that everything is fine. I can’t ignore it. I can’t fix it. I can only lead them to the One that has a remedy. Nights like tonight it seems overwhelming.

The Lost Sheep

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Every year I take the boxes of Christmas decorations out of the garage and begin to take the decorations out of their packaging and arrange the house. I bought this shepherd, star and sheep at a craft fair several years ago in honor of my husband being a Pastor.

Every year at the beginning of the Christmas season I pull the star and the shepherd out of one box and then can’t find the sheep. Each year I vow to pack them together so that they don’t get lost and each year at the end of the season for some strange reason they don’t get put back together. I have a lot of ornaments and it takes time to find the sheep. One year, I found it on top of the guest room closet after going back out to the garage sure that I had missed a box. Go figure that one out. I’m still trying to figure out how that happened as well.

Everything stops as I go looking for this lost sheep. I don’t move forward with the decorating because it bugs me that I’ve lost it again this year. It reminded me of a story in the bible as I was looking all over this sheep.

Luke 15:3. Then Jesus told them this parable:
4. “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?
5. And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders
6. and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’
7. I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.

I have 100’s of ornaments but I look for this one each year. I stop everything I am doing to find it. What is it about sheep that get lost? The feeling of finally finding it gives me great joy as I call out “Found it!”

This Christmas when I found the sheep I put it in its place next to the Shepherd and I thanked the Lord. The not-so-simple little feat of leaving the other sheep behind to go off and find me when I was lost is not wasted on me. The fact that the angels rejoice when one is found takes my breath away. Think about it, what is one in 6 billion people? Yet, everything stops as the God of the Universe sends his only begotten son to earth to search and to find that one that was lost? Then he carefully restored that sheep to stand next to the shepherd where he was called to be all along.