Cultivation for Life

In many ways, our lives are kinda like farming. We cultivate relationships and friendships and sometimes those turn into life-long, close relationships. It takes patience and effort though and occasionally we don’t take care of these very well. Many times in our lives, a lot of time will go by before we see each other or even speak to each other. It causes hurt feelings and bruised pride and can really damage a friendship…sometimes.

We really should try to put the effort into our relationships, whether they are friends or our spouse or even our family. But, sometimes we neglect to honor those with our time and our effort and when we do that, things change. Weeds will grow in our “garden of friends”. Sometimes we will see them and get rid of them before they cause problems. Sometimes they are aggressive and they have roots that go deep into our past and it is possible that we have forgotten what caused them in the first place.

Why do I speak about friendships and relationships like a garden? Because we should work on them like we would a garden. Make sure that the “soil” of our life is ready for a newly planted “friend” and then take care of them in whatever way is needed. Don’t neglect them because when you neglect a garden or a friendship, problems begin to appear. Weeds in a garden and hurt feelings in a relationship, whether it is between friends or in a closer relationship, they will grow and cause more problems.

That is the wonderful thing about your relationship with God and His Son, Jesus. They already know what is going on in your life. They aren’t surprised or hurt by what you say or don’t say. They can see the “problems” before they come up but they want us to recognize them and seek their help with those problems. Because they are better at fixing problems than we are. They know the cause and the fix before you or me. But just because they aren’t surprised by our problems doesn’t mean that they will try to force us to listen to their advice. We have to seek them out and ask for their help with our problems.

Sometimes it takes a problem coming into our lives to force us to seek God’s answer and His wisdom for this situation. We don’t like it when these problems show up and they usually are very inconvenient because of their timing but if we will seek God’s wisdom to get us through them one at a time, we will learn from them and be able to move forward. God always has better advice for us in His Word than we could ever find in a library or even from a friend if we will listen to the advice and take it to heart.

Your life and mine are populated with many friends. Some we know only at work and some we’ve known since grammar school. Some are just acquaintances and some are very close friends. Sometimes the friendship might have become stale because of time or distance and that can happen to family relationships too. Make sure that your relationship with Jesus is not stale. Keep in touch with Him at all times and in all things, good or bad, because He will never leave you or forsake you regardless of the circumstances.

How foolish are we?

O God, You know my foolishness; and my sins are not hidden from You.
Psalm 69:5 Do you realize that all of the wisdom that we have is completely foolish in God’s sight? All of the learning and the degrees in the world are simply “man’s wisdom” and learning which we may believe is the best, but without God’s wisdom and His guidance, it means nothing. God’s Word is the best book to read in times of heartache and trouble and it is the best book to read for your healing when you are sick. There is so much wise advice in God’s Word until the best education that you could have would be to read it every day!

Our ideas and wisdom can carry us only so far but His Wisdom and advice can carry us all the way to eternity! Doesn’t that sound wonderful? God loves each of us and has loved each of us from before the Earth and everything else was created. Not just because we were a thought in His mind but because He lives outside of time. He can see the beginning and the ending of the universe and He knows when you were born and when you will die. He also knows everything that you can and will do in your life, and that applies to everyone! Not just Christians living now but those who will become Christians before the end of the world!

Remember in the Psalm where David wrote “I am fearfully and wonderfully made“? He was speaking of God’s involvement in stitching each of us together before we are born. But, even before God’s hand does this He could look down through time itself and see each of us and know what manner of person we would be and how useful we would be in His Kingdom. We serve God, our Creator and Redeemer, Who lives and has lived forever. We do not serve a man with his wisdom and his “sayings”! God’s Spirit moved the prophets and scribes of ages past and He still moves those who will listen to Him to write His words and remind people about His Love for them.

God has never failed to keep His promises to us and He won’t fail to do so in the years to come. I ask that anyone who reads this please seek out Jesus and His salvation for your life because we are not guaranteed tomorrow. Make sure of your eternity and your salvation today while you can.

Live your life with the Holy Spirit…

We must build each other up in faith

How unique are you?

Consider that God knitted your DNA together in the womb, there is not another person on Earth like you. Even if they are your twin, there is something unique about each of you that the other does not have. Why does God make each of us in this way? Because, it gives each of us those special and unique talents and abilities which makes each of us so useful to Him. In ways that we may not realize until He shows us what they are.

God loves each of us, whether we have given our hearts to Jesus or not. He has loved us this deeply since before creation. So make sure that you seek Him in all that you do when you feel His call on your life. Living in this world today we can see the evil around us all of the time. On the news, on the Internet, in newspapers and magazines. When I say evil I mean anything which does not acknowledge God as King and Jesus as Savior. If you listen to the words of those who want a socialist state you can tell that they do not revere God in any way except for thinking that they are “god”.

You are unique because God made you that way. Mom and Dad contributed some genetic material to your creation but God is the designer and He put the traits which He wanted you to have inside you. We are made in and carry God’s image in us. We are not gods but we are children of His, if we have given our hearts to Jesus and have been adopted into His family. If you don’t have Jesus as your Savior then you are no better than any other lost person in this world. But…if God has a special job for you to do He will make a way for you to come to Him as a saved and sanctified child adopted into His family. There is no power on Earth that can stop Him if He has determined that you are His!

God sent Jesus to be the sacrifice which paid for all of your sins and mine so that you can be adopted as sons into His family.

Walk according to His commandments

Good trees bear good fruit

This is a miracle!

‘He Was So Shiney and Bright’: Muslim Details Miraculous Conversion After Jesus Visited Him Nightly ‘For Weeks’

Praise the Lord for his Love and His Grace!

God refreshes my soul with His presence

Friends…

Are you a friend to somebody? Do you have many friends that you actually know? Or are you more like me, you have friends that you have known for a long time but life and distance keep you from seeing each other? Many of us are in the same place that I am. We do have friends and have had some for many years but circumstances and distance tend to make the relationship kinda hard to keep alive. Even my relationship with some of my family is tempered by distance and our ability to bridge that distance is tempered by money and time as well.

In many ways, our relationship with Jesus sometimes falls into this same rut. We get caught up in life and our own problems and we push our time with Jesus and His Word to the back of our priority list. Then, sometimes, it gets pushed a little bit more. Then one day we realize that we truly miss our relationship with our Savior and we come back to Him apologizing for being away for so long. Why? Because it was us who moved, Jesus has always been near us. If we are Christians, His Spirit is still there even if we aren’t paying any attention to Him. This happens more often than we would like to admit…to anyone.

Sometimes we get a bit too open with our words and our “opinions” and we hurt each other’s feelings. Sometimes I feel like we do the same thing to Jesus as well, but He forgives us even when we do it more than we should. The best thing that we can remember about friendships is: don’t treat your regular friends like you treat Jesus. Because we take Him for granted all of the time and we should never take our friends for granted. God gave us friends to be there when we need them because until He comes to rule this Earth He isn’t physically here. So our friends are there to be “stand-ins” for Him.

Make sure which friends you have and always treasure their friendship like you would a brother or a sister because in Christ we are all brothers and sisters.