The Life of a Quilt

This post inspired by a quilter's blog scrappermarylu.blogspot.com

Life is like a quilt project. It looks like a mess to all but the master quilter. He has all the pieces already laid out in His mind. As He works, the scraps begin to make sense, and form patterns to the onlooker, but still, until it is complete, there is only patterns and colors, but once the Master has finished, we find a thing of beauty.

Jeff Steinberg ( a Christian musician from the 1980's) had a song called Masterpiece in Progress, which illustrated this concept perfectly. Visit his website at http://www.tinygiant.com/

Anyway, right now, my life is a mess. I am working a full time job, as well as a part time job. I am in a financial crisis. I have stubborn sin that keeps rearing its ugly head. I have been a Christian all my life, yet 46 years in, I still struggle with sin. Why, O Lord, cannot I win over the sin in my life? I think it is so I will be more compassionate toward others in their sins. I also think it is to remind me I need to rely on God's Grace to get me there, not get there on my own. No matter how good I am, I will never be good enough to get into heaven. God loves me, and paid the price for my sin back 2000 years ago. Jesus died for my sin. !! He loves me that much.

God, help me to resist the devil, and to sin no more, but keep me living for You, and compassionate to Your other children, that I may see them from Your perspective.

Kingdom Upside Down

The kingdom of Jesus Christ is all about others. Jesus said the key to being great in His kingdom, is to become a servant to others. Morgan Cryar http://www.premierrecords.com/ said it well in his song Kingdom Upside Down hence the name of this post to my blog. This has been one of my favorite songs since the mid 1980s. Many people have espoused service to others, but the service that Jesus honors is that which is done simply because it should be done, or because it is done in His Name. We must ask ourselves, "Am I doing this to get a reward, to be recognized, or just because it needs to be done?" Those who serve to get recognition, have their reward when the get the recognition. Those who serve to bring glory to Christ, or to receive honor only from Christ, will get their reward when they meet Him face to face. We all have the potential to be pigs (people who look out for their own interests first). But we also all have the potential to look out for others first. The world tells us to look out for number one (meaning ourselves), but Jesus says to look out for others first. Matthew 6:33 says to "Seek first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you." This means that God will take care of us, and meet our needs, if we will put Him, and His Kingdom (serving others) as the priority in our lives.

The Divinity of Christ

Many people have undertaken to prove, or disprove the Divinity of Christ Jesus. I do not happen to believe there is any room for, nor justification for any doubt that Jesus is God Almighty in human flesh. Some of the reasons for this is the Old Testament clearly declares that God Himself would be the Savior of the world(meaning all men). The New Testament provides ample proof (to those who have ears to hear) that Jesus (the Christ)is indeed the Savior of the world. One parallel passage in particular is the correlation between Isaiah Chapter 6, which describes how the prophet Isaiah saw the LORD GOD; and the Gospel of John chapter 12: verses 36 - 41 which clearly identifies Christ Jesus as the one seen by, and described by the same prophet Isaiah. Another passage, 1st Epistle of Peter, talks about the Spirit of Christ speaking thru the many prophets of old about the sufferings of Christ. If it is the Spirit of Christ, and the Old Testament says it is the Spirit of God, we again MUST agree that these are ONE AND THE SAME !