Tag: Simply Said

Believe

Deuteronomy 11:1 & 19 (NIV) 1 “You must love the Lord your God and always obey his requirements, decrees, regulations, and commands.”  19 “Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”

Tis the season to be jolly! This time of year is magical for children and adults alike.  Such beautiful decorations in the stores and on homes; the excitement and anticipation of presents and surprises. Have you seen those cute signs in red and green or plaid that say “Believe”?  They are referring to Santa Claus, but I always imagine that they are referring to Jesus.

The story of Santa Claus is told over and over again to children year after year.  They make cartoons about him, movies about him, clothes with his face on them.  You see him in advertisements and hear his “Ho, ho, ho” on radio commercials.  Now imagine if we did the same thing for Jesus.  What if every child knew about Jesus the way every child knows about Santa? 

Maybe you can’t personally reach EVERY child, but you can reach YOUR child.  The Bible says in Deuteronomy 11 that we must love the Lord and obey his commands.  Then it goes on to say that as parents, we need to teach these things to our children.  We should do this at home, when we are traveling, in the morning and in the evening.  Basically, any time and all the time.  If we see a moment to teach our children about Jesus, we should do it.

We should teach them that God loves us so much that he sent Jesus to save us.  But Jesus didn’t come as a man.  He came as a baby.  Jesus has been a toddler, a pre-teen, a teenager and a young adult.  He knows what we are going through every day.  We need to teach our children to talk to Jesus and cultivate a relationship with Him.  Finally, we need to teach our children that Jesus took our place on the cross and died for our sins.  What an A-M-A-Z-I-N-G gift God has given us in Jesus. 

So, next time you see a cute Christmas decoration that says “Believe”, take that moment to teach your child something about Jesus and his love for us.

Heavenly Father, thank you for sending Jesus to save us from our sins. Help us as parents to remember to teach our children about your love and Jesus’s sacrifice for us.  Amen

Do You Have a Village?

James 1:2-3 (MSG) Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides.  You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So, don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work, so you become mature and well developed, not deficient in any way.

This has been a rough week for me.  In addition to being a single parent of three teenage boys (which is hard enough), I have a full time job, I’m shopping for Christmas presents and I had something planned after work every day this week.  I haven’t finished decorating our house for Christmas, I haven’t had time to go grocery shopping and I haven’t cleaned the house in two weeks.  UGH!  But the icing on the cake this week . . . I let my work family down.  I scheduled a new photographer for both of our Client Christmas Luncheons and it was a total flop.  The photographer was unable to get her equipment working at either luncheon and now she is refusing to refund our money.  What a mess.  I felt just awful because we really wanted to have something special for our clients and I failed.  Afterwards, I felt beat down, sad, frustrated and tired.

After work that day I went to a friend’s house for game night.  When I walked in, they could tell the sparkle in my eye was missing.  Before we start playing our game, we always go around the room and ask for prayer requests.  All I had to do is say I had a rough week and the tears started to flow. I couldn’t hold it in any longer.  My friends prayed over me that night three different times.  My spirit was lifted and my sadness disappeared and I was ready to take on a new day.  I still have to deal with the aftermath of the failed photographer, but I know that my community of Christian friends are praying for me.

So that started me thinking . . . Do you have a community of Christ-filled friends?  A “village” of people that want the best for you?  Life is hard and life alone is even harder. When tests and challenges come at you from all sides, I want to pray for you.  I want to be your village.  So, if you would like to be included in my prayers, please let me know.  I will pray for you, neighbor!

Dear heavenly Father, thank you for this week.  Thank you for the pressure that forced my faith-life into the open.  I pray that everyone who needs prayer will boldly ask for it. Amen.

Love One Another

Mark 12:31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.

Way back before Jesus was born, God helped the Israelites (also called the Jews) escape Egypt where they were slaves.  God led them to a special place he called the Promised Land. When they finally arrived, God told them not to marry or mingle with the people in that land because they did not believe in the one true God.  Now fast forward to Jesus’s time.  Jesus preached about love, grace and forgiveness.  He said the most important commandment was to love God and in Mark 12:31 it says, “The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”  Many Jews did not believe that Jesus was God’s son and did not want to love one another.  They only wanted to love other Jews. 

Since many Jewish people rejected Jesus and didn’t want to believe that he was God’s son, Jesus’s friends began to tell other races about Jesus so that everyone could have an opportunity to believe and be saved.  They were very successful and lots of people believed and were saved!  So, one day, Peter, one of Jesus’s friends, was asked to go to Cornelius’s house.  Cornelius was the captain of the Italian Guard and not a Jew.

When Peter got to Cornelius’s house, the Bible says in Acts 10:27-29 (MSG) “Talking things over, they went on into the house, where Cornelius introduced Peter to everyone who had come. Peter addressed them, “You know, I’m sure that this is highly irregular. Jews just don’t do this – visit and relax with people of another race. But God has just shown me that no race is better than any other. So, the minute I was sent for, I came, no questions asked. But now I’d like to know why you sent for me.”

So, there you have it.  No race is better than any other.  That is what God says in the Bible.  Another race may look strange to you, but you look strange to them too.  You may listen to different music, have different ways of talking to friends or wear different clothes.  But different isn’t bad, it is just different.  Take a minute to get to know people for who they are not what they look like and you will be pleasantly surprised about how much you actually have in common.

Lord, thank you for making so many amazing and wonderful people.  Help me to remember that you want me to love my neighbor as much as I love myself. Amen

Campfire Songs

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1 John 4:7-8       Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.  Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

When I was in the 8th grade, my class spent 3 days at a Christian camp in LaGrange, Texas called Camp Lone Star.  We did all the fun things you normally do at camp plus we had Bible studies and opportunities to learn more about Jesus.  One night we learned a campfire song based on 1 John 4:7-8.  In fact, the lyrics of the song are exactly the words of this Bible verse.  The song and tune stuck with me and I can still sing it to this day.  

Occasionally, with no warning at all, the song comes to mind and I’ll start singing it.  That happened to me tonight during a class I’ve been taking at church.  The speaker said 1 John 4 and immediately the song came to my mind and I started singing it in my head.  I wrote the verse down and when I got home, I looked it up and started to study it. 

1 John was actually a letter written by the John who was one of Jesus’ 12 disciples.  John did not write the letter to a specific person or church.  In fact, he sent it to several Gentile (non-Jewish) churches, so I’d like to imagine he was sending it to me too.  When John wrote the letter, he was one of, if not the only person left on earth that had personally known Jesus.  He had eaten with Jesus, walked and talked with Jesus, and watched Jesus heal the sick and perform miracles.  He saw Jesus die on the cross and he saw Jesus after he had risen from the dead.  John learned all about love from Jesus and he had the absolute best teacher in the world.

The message he wanted us to retain is simple.  Love one another because God is love.  That means love your neighbors, even the ones who play their music too loud.  Love your little brother who steals your phone chord without asking.  Love your co-worker who only has negative things to say about everyone.  Love the homeless man on the corner who is always looking for a handout.  Love them.  Love them all.  Loving the people you already like is easy.  But loving the people that drive you nuts, that is what Jesus really wants us to do.  You might be the only Jesus they see today so make sure they see Jesus’s love.

Lord, thank you for showing us what love is. Help us to share your love with everyone around us. Amen.