"He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful." 1 Corinthians 1:8-9

Whew! I read that this morning and thought; "What a relief!!" He will keep me strong. He is faithful. I don't have to be strong or figure everything out. My bringing Him glory to the very end has more to do with how faithful He is than how faithful I am.

I simply have to abide in Him, hope in Him, rest in Him. That brings me a lot of peace!

-Angela

We are in the middle of a series about relationships. Personally I don't think we talk about anything that is more important than that. Jesus spent a lot of time teaching us how to love and care for one another. The Ten Commandments are basically God explaining to His people how to relate to Him and to each other.

This past week we talked about being selfish. I remember running across this verse a few years ago (actually I just really paid attention to it a few years ago, I certainly had read it before):

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross! Philippians 2:3-8

NOTHING?? I would much rather that verse say "Do most things without selfish ambition being the motive", but it says nothing. The truth is, you cannot be selfish if you are putting the needs of others before your own. That flies in the face of everything our culture tells us and all that our own human nature screams for! We are told to look out for ourselves, to put ourselves first, that the world and God and everyone in our lives owes us.

But God says something very different. He says, I came and died on a cross to set you free from your own selfish desires. I came and demonstrated for you how I want you to serve and love. His life was all about serving and his death was all about love!

I will never love to the point of dying on a cross. But I want to commit myself to loving more selflessly everyday. To pour out my life for others and to let Him continue to work selfishness out of my heart and motives.

I can only do that by keeping my heart fixed on the cross, where He gave the most selfless thing of all, Himself.

-Angela

In our Experiencing God study this week our group came across this from Henry Blackaby:

"Your relationships with your Christian brothers and sisters are an expression of your relationship with God. You cannot be in true fellowship with God and out of fellowship with other believers."(commenting on 1 John 1:1-7)

If we find ourselves in a place where we are having trouble loving people, we need to stop and let God do His purifying work on our hearts. Too much is at stake for us not to show a lost and broken world the love of Christ in how we love each other.

By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. John 13:35

As we celebrate the birth of a Savior who paid the ultimate cost for our salvation, may we show the world His love by how we genuinely love each other.

-Angela

Edited: 12/14/2009 at 8:28 AM by LaCroix Church Blog Moderator

The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one's own or real life. The truth is of course that what one call the interruptions are precisely one's real life - the life God is sending one day by day. C.S. Lewis

Have you ever noticed that many great moments happen during "interruptions". The Bible is full of examples of interruptions. Jesus was preaching one day in someone's house and some men were desperate for him to heal their friend. They couldn't get to Jesus, so they put a hole in the roof and dropped their friend right down in front of him, completely interrupting whatever he was saying to the people who had come to hear what he had to say. (Mark 2:1-5)

Jesus stops what he is saying and heals their friend. Have you ever wondered why the Bible tells us about the interruption that day and not what Jesus was preaching about with so many there to listen? Perhaps it is because interruptions are important.

The question for us is, do we welcome interruptions as a chance to touch someone's life or offer hope to a hurting friend? Or are our lives so full and busy and important that we don't take time to stop for an interruption? Do we allow God to use us in unexpected times and places?

We may need to do like Jesus did and pause life for interruptions.

-Angela

So, I finally ran my half marathon! It was an amazing experience to do something that I never dreamed I could do and to push myself way beyond what was comfortable for me. But the best moment of the day was when I heard about this volunteer who had come to pass out water at mile 11.

A woman, who was originally there to run the full marathon but missed the 9 mile cutoff time and had to settle for the half, arrived at the 11 mile station and told the volunteer that she just wasn't going to make it. She asked if they would please call someone to come and pick her up. She went on to explain that she didn't make the cutoff and was so discouraged and tired that she just couldn't go the last 2 miles to even finish the half.

The volunteer tried to encourage her to finish and finally said, "What if I run the rest of the way with you?" The lady couldn't believe that this volunteer was willing to jump in and run with her. In the end the two of them took of from the 11-mile station and crossed the finish line together. The young woman didn't hold the runner up, didn't even touch her in fact, but her presence gave her the strength to finish the race.

This is why I love the Body of Christ. This is why I am passionate about small groups. We are here to run together, to encourage each other as we each "run the race that is set out for us". We can't run it for each other, but running with each other gives us the strength and courage to finish well.

I pray that you know the beauty of having brothers and sisters in Christ who are running beside you, reminding you of who Christ is and who you are in Him and that you run this race well!

Running On
Angela

Edited: 10/23/2009 at 8:27 AM by abeise

Have you ever said something like this, "I sure wish __________ understood the point I'm trying to make."

Have you ever prayed something like this, "Lord, please show ___________ how to see what I'm talking about."

We all want to be understood and we all think that better insight into our unique perspective on a relationship, an opportunity or a conflict would make the other person more considerate because they would "see what's really going on."

I was challenged this morning with this:

If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Philippians 2:1-4

So maybe we should sound something like this; "Lord, give us the wisdom of your perspective that ___________ and I may be mutually considerate of one another, be obedient to you, and find unity."

- Rob

As the Israelites approached the promised land, a few of the tribes desired to settle east of the Jordan. Moses told them that this was fine as long as they crossed the Jordan with their brothers and helped them battle for the land. The people of Reuben, Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh did just that; for years they fought alongside the rest of Israel until Joshua allowed them to return across the Jordan and rest. As they were returning, they built a massive altar.

11 And when the Israelites heard that they had built the altar on the border of Canaan at Geliloth near the Jordan on the Israelite side, 12 the whole assembly of Israel gathered at Shiloh to go to war against them.

Israel immediately thought that these tribes had constructed an altar to use for sacrifices; one that would replace or be in rival with the altar of the tabernacle. They are so ready to project these motives on the eastern tribes that they gear up for war. However, they send a delegation first and in conversation they find that this is not the case at all.

24 "No! We did it for fear that some day your descendants might say to ours, 'What do you have to do with the LORD, the God of Israel? 25 The LORD has made the Jordan a boundary between us and you—you Reubenites and Gadites! You have no share in the LORD.' So your descendants might cause ours to stop fearing the LORD. 26 "That is why we said, 'Let us get ready and build an altar—but not for burnt offerings or sacrifices.' 27 On the contrary, it is to be a witness between us and you and the generations that follow, that we will worship the LORD at his sanctuary with our burnt offerings, sacrifices and fellowship offerings. Then in the future your descendants will not be able to say to ours, 'You have no share in the LORD.'

I was thinking that we are just as quick to apply the very worst motives to others when we don't understand what they are doing. We are often quick to make war of one kind or another; cold shoulder, gossip, slander, etc. We can learn a lesson from this passage in Joshua about confronting a situation and having a discussion rather than just assuming the motives of another and acting on those assumptions.

- Rob

One of the things that we do with those closest to us relationally is give them permission to speak into us. The closer we are to them, the deeper their words sink. This is not a bad thing, as we often need others to provide correctives in our lives.

The key, however, is to always check these words with a discerning spirit and with the help of God's Word. It is true that our friends and family are not always speaking the truth. They are most likely not attempting to hurt us or divert us; but they may unintentionally do so.

Likewise, as we attempt to speak truth into the lives of those we care about, we need to be humble enough to recognize that sometimes we will be wrong.

- Rob

I visited my good friend's father in one of our local nursing homes a few weeks back. He is succumbing to Alzheimers; slowly slipping away. We had a good visit, reading scripture and praying. At the end of our time together he said, "Very well done!" and it reminded me of Jesus saying, "It is finished."
Our visit stayed on my mind for several days, and I wrote this poem. My friend felt blessed by it.

Age-stained hands
Wobbly legs
I wish you could walk with me
Oh Gray Whisp

Imprisoned mind
Frightened eyes
I wish you could understand me
Oh Gray Whisp

Quivering lips
Tangled tongue
I wish you could talk with me
Oh Gray Whisp

Shining light
Breath of Life
Jesus comes to set you free
Oh Gray Whisp

- Rob Mehner