Skip to main content

A Morning View Near the Patio

In my daily struggle striving to live as a child of the Living God I am constantly reminded from Matthew 16:24-26 that when I get up each day the I need to deny myself, take up my cross and follow Jesus. This passage also asks the question, "What if I gain the whole world and lose my soul?"
Maybe I am crazy, but the more I read, learn and experience this Jesus in my life, the less I worry and depend upon myself. I just desire to get better each day denying myself and following Jesus. Why would I be so arrogant to think that I would not have difficult, even devastating times in my life just because I am a Christian? I do not always get it right, and I know there are steps on my journey to take action moving forward, but do I deny myself, take up my cross and follow Jesus FIRST?
I have been struggling to write for the past hour and a half. I do not have any cute illustrations or puppy dog stories to tell. There is nothing coming to my heart to share other than feeling like a prophet and calling all of us out to step up and deny ourselves, our selfish ambitions, our arrogance of privilege and take up our cross and follow Jesus.
I have two more verses to share. But before I end with them, I ask you to seek God first today. Please do not try to find something you do not agree with or debate the world, but seek God, deny yourself and really follow Jesus.
May God speak to our selfish hearts of stone.
“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”   - Matthew 6:24
“Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.” - Matthew 6:34
Peace,
PB

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Morning View By the Wood Stove

If you proclaim Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, then I must ask you a question. Are you seeking the deepest possible intimate relationship with God that you can ever experience on this earth? Because I know what I am about to say to be absolutely true. If you are not and if you are pursuing anything other than God you will not ever be satisfied and ultimately any other relationship will fail. It does not matter how deeply connected with another person you are without God it will fail. Failure may not mean completely walk away, failure can mean that a relationship will not be what it is intended to be and you settle for it because at least it is there, it's the best I can do, it could be worse and for many other reasons.  We are created to be in relationship with one another. We have many relationships and many depths within those relationships. We have social relationships. We have relationship with many forms of addiction and substitution. We have friends and we have FRIENDS...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Morning View Near the Patio

I believe Christians are called to live a different life in the world than those who are not Christian. I believe that no matter the circumstance of the world, the government and all the just and injustice we are called to be different. Jesus handled the Easter journey much differently than I believe the modern Christian in the USA would have handled it. The Apostle Paul lived as best he humanly could to model the path and life of Jesus Christ during the difficult times of persecution and injustice of his journey. A lot of thoughts are swirling in my head during our difficult time we are currently experiencing and all of those thoughts come back to my life as a Christian, believer and follower of Jesus Christ, and do my thoughts, actions and words model Jesus on the Easter journey to the cross? In Matthew 16:24-26 Jesus told his disciples to "take up their cross and follow me!" I am believing that Jesus is telling us to live like, act like, be like and love like Jesus did....
Post a Comment
Read more

A Morning View Near the Patio

Sabbath - to rest from labor, set aside as holy. Because we have less to do in our current situation, perhaps as Christians we can redefine what Sabbath looks like for us. I wonder how many of us traditionally go to church in our weekend routine, have lunch then get right back at it? After all, we have so much to do and so little time. It has been nice to sit and be. On the nicer days, when the weather cooperates, it has been so nice to sit on the patio and just be. I have sat and contemplated there more this year than I did all last summer. Perhaps a new normal of Sabbath can take place in our lives. As a child I remember going to church on Sunday morning and on the way home being dropped off at Grandma and Granddad's place. We would have lunch and quite often go for a ride. Usually the ride would end somewhere with ice cream! The routes must have been develops around the ice cream establishments in Northeast Ohio! We did very little, but for me as a kid we did a lot. I remember...
Post a Comment
Read more