God-story, not Abraham-story

Romans 4:1-3
...If Abraham, by what he did for God, got God to approve him, he could certainly have taken credit for it. But the story we're given is a God-story, not an Abraham-story. What we read in Scripture is, "Abraham entered into what God was doing for him, and that was the turning point. He trusted God to set him right instead of trying to be right on his own.

Romans 4:19-25
Abraham didn't focus on his own impotence and say, "It's hopeless. This hundred-year-old body could never father a child." Nor did he survey Sarah's decades of infertility and give up. He didn't tiptoe around God's promise asking cautiously skeptical questions. He plunged into the promise and came up strong, ready for God, sure that God would make good on what he had said. That's why it is said, "Abraham was declared fit before God by trusting God to set him right." But it's not just Abraham; it's also us! The same thing gets said about us when we embrace and believe the One who brought Jesus to life when the conditions were equally hopeless. The sacrificed Jesus made us fit for God, set us right with God.

God, help me to be like Abraham and trust you to set me right because I KNOW that I CAN'T do it on my own. That's why it's important for me to talk to you daily. I can't learn to trust you if I don't have a relationship.

What happened was this:

Romans 1:16-17
...God's powerful plan to rescue everyone who trusts him, starting with Jews and then right on to everyone else! God's way of putting people right shows up in the acts of faith, confirming what Scripture has said all along: "The person in right standing before God by trusting him really lives."

I know this to be true. I (don't) see it everyday when I do or do not spend time with God. If I'm not putting Him first, things don't go to well with my relationships with others, especially my wife. But when I take the first part of my free time (like when I get home from work as I am doing today) and spend it with the Lord, I know that he will bless the rest of my evening.

Romans 1:18-32
But God's angry displeasure erupts as acts of human mistrust and wrong doing and lying accumulate, as people try to put a shroud over truth. But the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can't see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being. So nobody has a good excuse. What happened was this: People knew God perfectly well, but when they didn't treat him like God, refusing to worship him, they trivialized themselves into silliness and confusion so that there was neither sense nor direction left in their lives. They pretended to know it all, but were illiterate regarding life. They traded the glory of God who holds the whole world in his hands for cheap figurines you can buy at any roadside stand. So God said, in effect, "If that's what you want, that's what you get." It wasn't long before they were living in a pigpen, smeared with filth, filthy inside and out. And all this because they traded the true God for a fake god, and worshiped the god they made instead of the God who made them —the God we bless, the God who blesses us. Oh, yes!
Worse followed. Refusing to know God, they soon didn't know how to be human either women didn't know how to be women, men didn't know how to be men. Sexually confused, they abused and defiled one another, women with women, men with men all lust, no love. And then they paid for it, oh, how they paid for it —emptied of God and love, godless and loveless wretches. Since they didn't bother to acknowledge GGod God quit bothering them and let them run loose. And then all hell broke loose: rampant evil, grabbing and grasping, vicious backstabbing. They made life hell on earth with their envy, wanton killing, bickering, and cheating. Look at them: mean-spirited, venomous, fork-tongued God-bashers. Bullies, swaggerers, insufferable windbags! They keep inventing new ways of wrecking lives. They ditch their parents when they get in the way. Stupid, slimy, cruel, cold-blooded. And it's not as if they don't know better. They know perfectly well they're spitting in God's face. And they don't care —worse, they hand out prizes to those who do the worst things best!

That comes from "The Message" translation. I really like this version cause it's really easy to understand and clasp what God is saying to me in His Word. But the above passage is important to me because it is so easy to put other things before God in your life. (I wanted to summarize the passage so to not take up so much room, but I loved it all. I wanted to share it all) Before you know it it, all you want to do is those earthly things that you really like, and it consumes your whole being! You'll never become fulfilled if He is not the most important part of your life. My relationship with Him is the key! Praise You God!!!

You're the One!

Flipping through channels last night, I  watched part of a show called "Miami Ink". It's about a Miami tattoo parlor and the people who work there. Actually it's more about the customers who come in and get specific tattoos for specific reasons. Like they get someone's name cause they died and they want to remember them. But the one I saw was about this man who wanted a tattoo that would remind himself of the struggles he faced in his past with drug addictions. He ended up getting these skulls of flame that represented the "hell" he went through. But some of the skulls had wings that represented his coming out of the addiction. I thought it was pretty cool lookin' myself :)

But he claimed that he couldn't have done it (not get the tatto, silly) with out God's help.

Later in the show, the owner was talking to the (camera) audience about the guy and said something like, "Thinking that God helped you and all is great... but you gotta give yourself credit. You're the one who gets yourself back up. Give yourself a pat on the back."

In Nehemiah 9 the Israelites remind us that God is our provider. He takes care of his children.
God, You're the one!   

 5-6 Blessed be your glorious name,
   exalted above all blessing and praise! You're the one,
   God, you alone; You made the heavens,
   the heavens of heavens, and all angels; The earth and everything on it,
   the seas and everything in them; You keep them all alive;
   heaven's angels worship you!

It goes on to list all the things God did for his children even when they turned their backs. We all turn our backs sometimes and it's great to know we can turn right back around and He's standing their with arms wide open for us to come home to Him.

I'm thankful for a God that's real. A God who by the sound of his voice created the universe. And especially, a God who loves me more than I could ever imagine.

Wasted Time or Invested Time?

I've always been poor at time management. But it comes from giving in to what my flesh wants. Those desires are always the easiest to do, so they require little effort. Play a video game. Work on the computer. Play a video game.... How about taking 15 minutes from the hackin & slashin, and talk to Jesus. I know you've heard it a million times, but the truth is, our time here is short! 

Like this big ->      .       <- yeah. tiny isn't it?

God, help me to long for you every day. I realize how important it is to take time to hang with you. I must make time to pray more. I know that it's a tool you have given to us. When we pray, you move. I must trust that when I pray, you listen because what is important to me is important to you. Thank you so much for just loving me and being my friend. You are more than deserving of my time. I will invest in you because you have already invested in me. Thanks :)