We are told you can live…
50 days without food, 8 days without water, 5 minutes without air, but only a few seconds without hope
We read the hope deferred makes us sick but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life!
How do we get from a sick heart to a tree of life, to a place where despite the battles and the circumstances we can find hope?
So loving each other doesn’t just mean being kind and loving but doing what God commands…there is a whole bunch of stuff in the Bible about what God commands. Let’s go on a journey together to understand what it means…why is this so important…Jesus made it important, our world is falling apart and they need to see some hope, something tangible that says to them they can have joy, someone does care, it is worth it (whatever “it” is)
In college, I learned the phrase…”Prior planning prevents poor performance”
Spontaneity can be fun, on occasion, for pleasure, vacations, quick trips however for business and much of life …
Most of us function better when we have a plan or know the plan we are to follow
Think about it…to win in any sport you must have plan, to succeed in business you must have a plan…everything is designed with a plan, our homes, vehicles, what about our lives?
Everything successful comes with a plan.
Did you ever ask yourself…”Why am I here?” It is important to answer that question because it does reveal a plan
The idea here is teaching your children to pray, talk and live the word of God…if He indeed created us, designed us for a purpose then His ways are the ones that will truly bless us and knowing His word causes us to know Him and we can easily talk to Him on a regular basis because we know Him as friend and Father.
OK, so why don’t people trust God? People put God in the same category as the news, government and everyone else that let them down…once again God won’t
Did Mary solve all of these problems? Yes and no! By saying yes to the Lord, she become the conduit through which the light and love the world needed could come and change the world.
Jesus didn’t demand that they get their life straight and act like a Pharisee…he came and meet them so he could show them what a life of love, joy, and peace would look like…they might have heard his words and it gone over their heads but instead he met them where they were and showed them what they wanted and needed and how to get there from where they were.
For the next few weeks, we are looking at some of the characters of the Easter story. We often bring them to life for this season and miss the life lessons they offer. Some of them have become simply characters and we miss that they are real people who chose …
When we are in our greatest trials, our greatest struggles Jesus understands completely but his desire is not for you to stay there but to walk in freedom. When your heart is broken, when the future looks dark and hopeless, the question is still the same, what did Jesus say?
In order to make every day count, the early church’s passion was, as we see in Acts 5, to do good authentically, do good abundantly, and to do good adventurously! It changed their lives and the world around them!
