Greener pastures?

If God wants you where you are right now, there are no greener pastures – there is no better place for you to be. You may be in a solitary place with God as your only companion. You may be on a journey to freedom from a besetting sin. You may be among the unemployed, or in a hospital bed. Wherever you are right now, Jesus knows your needs. And he has you right where he wants you. Trust his reputation for taking care of his sheep. Stormie Omartian

Do you find yourself struggling with your current situation?  Are you living in a state of discontent?  If you have been running from God and refusing to follow His will, then your place of discontentment is natural because you are rebelling against your heart’s natural desire to follow its Creator. 

If you have tried to follow God’s leading in your life and still find yourself disillusioned and unsatisfied, you need to recognize that our sinful nature will always tempt us to believe that there are greener pastures elsewhere. The motive of the sinful nature is always personal pleasure. The motive of our Lord is always to make us like Christ.  This will very often place us in situations that bring us very little personal pleasure.  Can you imagine how different Christ’s three year ministry on earth would have been if He had been all about His personal pleasure, instead of His Father’s glory?

Trust Christ’s reputation for taking care of His sheep. I can tell you from personal experience that He has not once failed to take care of me…even when I prefer my personal pleasure over His growing season.

I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore. Psalm 121

Emmanuel

December has been a blur and now we find ourselves four days away from the dawn of a new year.  As a church we have been busy with Journey Through Bethlehem, our Christmas dinner, the true story of Christmas told through the performances of I Hear The Prophet Callin’, and the story told through the eyes of little children as the Children’s Ministry threw a birthday party for Jesus, and then a truly white Christmas Eve as we celebrated God’s greatest gift in our Christmas Eve services.  As a family, our December was especially blessed by the marriage of Emily and Adam.

I’m sure it has been a busy and perhaps hectic month for you as well.  But I hope that you have been able to set aside time to really consider God’s gift of life through Jesus Christ.   Think about it this way…in 1990 at the request of Carl Sagan, eminent astronomer, Voyager 1, as it was leaving the Solar System, turned its camera around to take a photo of Earth from a record distance.  The Pale Blue Dot photo has become famous for its incredible depiction of just how small a speck we are on the grand scale of the universe.  Moved by the photo, Sagan observed that “our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.”  And he would go on to conclude that “In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.”

But the wise men from the time of Jesus’ birth looked up at the vastness of the universe and came to a different conclusion.  Isaiah 9:2 ~ On those living in the land of the shadow of death, a great Light has dawned. And if we are wise today, we will acknowledge that we are but a speck, but we know the God who breathed the stars and the galaxies into existence. The same God who descended to this pale speck in the form of Jesus, Emmanuel…God WITH us. And every day of the year we can live in the glory of this perfect plan, this precious gift that brings us life and saves us from ourselves.

That is my prayer as we close out this year…that we would truly recognize that God is with us. That the Creator of the universe desires to interact with us intimately as we daily determine that Jesus will be Lord.

Focus

We talk a lot these days about 'staying focused.' We apply it to just about every aspect of our lives.  I like what Max Lucado says about Christ's focus:

The heart of Christ was relentlessly focused on one task. The day he left the carpentry shop of Nazareth he had one ultimate aim--the cross of Calvary. He was so focused that his final words were, "It is finished" (John 19:30).

How could Jesus say he was finished? There were still the hungry to feed, the sick to heal, the untaught to instruct, and the unloved to love. How could he say he was finished? Simple. He had completed his designated task. His commission was fulfilled. The painter could set aside his brush, the sculptor lay down his chisel, the writer put away his pen. The job was done.

Wouldn't you love to be able to say the same? Wouldn't you love to look back on your life and know you had done what you were called to do?  (From Let the Journey Begin: God's Roadmap for New Beginnings)

Do you know what you are called to do?  Do you have a relentless focus?  One thing we are all called to do is proclaim God's praise and bring Him glory.  We were formed for the purpose of praising Him.

...I provide water in the desert and streams in the wasteland, to give drink to my people, my chosen,  the people I formed for myself  that they may proclaim my praise.  Isaiah 43:20-21

As we move into the Easter season, it is good to examine our focus and recommit to living our lives in praise to God  for the building up of the kingdom.