Live blessed…

Blessed are they that dwell in thy house: They will be still praising thee. Selah. Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; In whose heart are the ways of them. Psalm 84:4‭-‬5 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/psa.84.4-5.KJV

When this Psalm was written, David was no longer writing them. But the message is still the same. Blessed is the man or the country that gains wisdom and strength from the Lord and the knowledge of His ways. All of us are blessed whether we believe it or not. God has given us the Earth as our home. He created the atmosphere and the water and all of the things that we need for life. God even created all of the trees and the animals and the grass and the air that we breathe, so shouldn’t we give thanks for everything that we have?

God loves His Creation and everything in the universe is His creation. Although it is true that many people believe that all of the stuff that we see in space and all around us came about by accident…none of it did. There had to be a Planner and a Creator to put everything in its place and create it the way that it should be. Creation doesn’t just happen. A car or a building doesn’t just happen because all of the parts are there. There has to be a plan and a designer and a builder to make those things happen so we were created by God, the Designer, and Builder of everything.

So…are you blessed? Yes! All of us are blessed by God each and every day of our lives. Live your life as a blessed and loved child of God. If you don’t know Him as your Savior then seek Him out as soon as you can.

Nothing good…

It seems that many in the church today have not realized that nothing good can be done…apart from God and His Strength! Can we do any amount of good in this life without Jesus? I don’t think so. Jesus said that we could do nothing without Him, particularly anything good in this life. Why? Because, as a branch can produce nothing apart from the tree or the vine that it grows from, we can produce nothing for God’s Kingdom without being attached to Jesus in our walk with Him!

Can churches and the people in those churches do much good in their community? Yes, they can and they can do much more if they are doing it for God’s Kingdom! Not for fame or for promotion of the church or the people in the church, but simply for God and for His purposes. Churches have done much to damage the image of Christians in the past and we need to be working toward changing this.

Many of the past “atrocities” that ISIS claims were done by Christians actually were done by the church of that time. I am not trying to point fingers or place blame, but the “dark ages” were times of persecution by the church, but not just toward so-called “unbelievers”. At least one Christian was persecuted and burned at the stake by the church for just having an English translation of the model prayer given by Jesus to His disciples!

During this time period, services were done in Latin and the people were not allowed to have translations in English. Which is why Tyndale determined to translate at least the New Testament into English and was working on the Old Testament when he was arrested, tried for heresy and burned at the stake after he was strangled. So, as you can see, the church has done some terrible things in its time as well. All in the name of God and the faith.

Please, make sure that your faith is grounded in Jesus the Christ and His resurrection. Don’t place your trust in man’s religions and rituals because they are like the flowers in the field, they will wither and die in His Light of truth! God’s Word is the only Truth in this world and the salvation that belief in Jesus brings is the only path to eternity. Any other path is just a dusty trail which leads to death.

Unreasonable expectations

In today’s world every person on Earth looks for something or someone who is unreasonable, impossible even because we are looking for that “perfect specimen”. We not only look for an immortal beauty but we want her to be strong but gentle and one who can fulfill all of our desires and our needs. No woman or man exists which can fulfill these expectations! Sometimes we get these ideas from watching movies or reading books like romance novels or maybe some other form of lesser entertainment.

But…perfection in all areas doesn’t exist in this mortal plane. There isn’t a man or woman on Earth who can be all of these and be in love with us because each of us is also imperfect. If the perfect man or woman exists then anyone or anything less than perfection, such as you and me, just won’t cut it! It is something which we learn as young adults usually to our own peril and disappointment.

Just as Galatea and Pygmalion, we too are bound by expectation and disappointment to some extent. In the story, he prays for her to be made into a woman who is like his ideal and his goddess grants his request. In reality, unless perfection is mated to perfection, the relationship is doomed to fail because an imperfect being, such as you or me, cannot fulfill the expectations of the other.

God can change you into a new creation when He comes to live in your heart, but until you are brought to Heaven there will always be a human who fails and falls in this life. Is it possible to have perfection in this mortal body? No, it is not. It is an unreasonable expectation of our existence to even think that it is possible.

Even God cannot look on us and we cannot look Him in the face without dire consequences. Perfect love and sinless Life cannot stand in our presence without causing our death because we are unable to be perfect in any of those areas. Perfection doesn’t exist in this realm of existence and since God exists outside our reality it only exists where He is. Did God expect too much of mankind? No, because He knew when He created them that they could not be obedient in all of their imperfect ways.

God does give us an image, an ideal to work toward in the person of Jesus Christ, and we can strive toward that goal but in this life we will never attain it. Learning about Jesus, following hard after Him in this life, reading and studying Scripture and prayer asking Him to grant us wisdom enough to understand Scripture’s true meaning, these are the works which guide us toward Him and His image.

As long as we don’t create an imperfect, human inspired image of Him, changing Jesus into a more attainable human ideal then we will do fine. If we do that then we are guilty of creating an idol of our own which resembles Jesus only in our minds, because it is not Him but an imperfect copy. Our copy or idea of Jesus or even God is based upon the only form that we are familiar with and that is ourself.

“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Matthew 6:33