Skip to main content

A Morning View Between the Wood Stove and Patio

The NCAA March Madness Championship picks back up today. There are teams still playing who have upset higher ranked teams and are the underdog to win it all. It is exciting when the unexpected happens and miracles on the court take on a new story line. Historically there are a few upsets in the tournament, but usually some team from the 10 topped ranked teams will be crowned champions. 

Miracles during the tournament are fun and challenging in our bracket busting moments. Where are the miracles in our lives? Are they there and we do not recognize them? Perhaps do we have the faith and practice it? We read about the many miracles that happened in the Bible. Many were performed during the life of Jesus, but many took place in the Old Testament stories as well as after Jesus was resurrected. In John 14:12 Jesus tells us that any who believe in Jesus will be able to do the same and even greater works than he has done. Perhaps I miss the greater works around me, but I struggle to see or perhaps recognize such greater works.  

College basketball teams practice for the games. They go over the fundamentals of the offense and defense. If I were the coach, we would practice foul shots until we were sick and tired of standing at the line shooting them and then we would shoot 10 more. Basic fundamentals are the foundation of winning basketball games, especially when you are not supposed to win as the underdog. 

Basic fundamentals of Christianity are the foundation laid for doing the works greater than Jesus did. Miracles happen when we seek deeper love connection with God. We experience and see the hand of God working in our lives when we are truly in our best love relationship with God. This does not mean God is not otherwise working, we just may not experience the glory of God in the moment because of spiritual blindness. For us to be the best Disciples of Jesus Christ, we must practice the fundamentals of our faith walk with God. Prayer, study, action and surrender of ourselves to take up the cross of Jesus and follow him. 

Walk the walk and do not just talk a good game. Practice, go and make disciples for Jesus Christ, do greater works in His name and see the miracles happen right before your eyes! 

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