Jesus vs. God

Yup, i bet that title got your attention.

Although i doubt there are very many who even read this blog, i enjoy writing it and sharing even if it is only myself that reads it.

so when i was a child i prayed "dear Jesus", i said thankyou and sorry to Jesus. I believed in Jesus and asked Jesus into my heart. And as i grew i did "what jesus would do".

As a teenager i started to hear "the Lord" and "Heavenly Father" , but mostly I would hear "God". God helped me do it, God gave me the strength. But Jesus is apparently left to the childhood prayers.

And yet I strive every day to have childlike faith. Childlike faith is truly amazing. Look at your son or daughter, neice or nephew, best friends child. Look at how they see the world. Child like faith.

If my son needs something, he knows he will get it. If he is scared he knows we will take care of him. if he is cold, we will cloth him, if he is tired we will tuck him into bed.

He has faith in us.

How much more can we have child like faith in Jesus? He will never fail us.
When did we get away from Jesus? When did it all become so formal?

I challenge you to have child like faith and talk to Jesus today as openly and freely and without shame as you could when you were a child.

I would love to hear any examples of how this worked for you. Any stories of child like faith from either a true child or yourself.

blessings to you all
Jineen

self-righteousness

So i am plagued by this word so much now that i feel i have to share.

First off i hate this word. it sound so nasty and it also seems like something so many people take pride in when using it aginst others.



People sitting smugly in their "principles" knowing that they are so much better than everyone else. Their sins aren't as bad, their houses are better, their jobs are better, their children are better, their lives are happier andmore fulfilled, basically their shit doesn't stink.



Please excuse my crassness....



anyway, two things have happened recently to bring me to this awful blog entry...



One: a family members notices that something in the extended family isn't right...someone needs some help and something needs to be done. one person can't do it alone, that person prays and thinks and prays and thinks and asks his spouse to help him get help for the loved one.

They come up with a plan, one they feel is benficial in everyway....they go to the family....they ask for help....they send an email....they state the facts....they ask for prayer and consideration.....they request a response.....



2 people putting themsleves out there for someone else, it isn't easy what they ask, it isn't short term what they ask....it requires commitment and care and love and sometimes unpleasantness...



and so far they have gone unanswered. every single person they have sought out, every person they have prayed for, every person who has something to contribute and is so valuable and vital...

has not answered.

has buried their head in the sand. has said it is too big, they are too busy they don't care enough.



do they think we won't move on without them?

when God gives you a burden in your heart do you bury your head in the sand?



Maybe people think they will,maybe they are never given enough credit to do something on their own, but God has given them a burdenm and it isn't the first time He has tested their faith, tested their willingness to follow.

They know they can do it....



Will you pray for strength for this couple?



the second: again with the family. a rough situation to begin with.....some kids and a broken marriage a new family for daddy, the previous seemingly discarded....

mommy goes a different way....not alone but not with a daddy.....



kids grow up and off on their own......struggling to find their way...making some decsions that aren't always right...



one gets in trouble.....he needs some help...



why does everyone in the family get up on their high horse and say"maybe it's better this way?"

why does everyone think that the "bad kid" deserves to suffer?



maybe they don't know how much he already has.



being beaten and hurt and lied to and treated unequal and even underfed for lack of caring.



Maybe for once he needs a get out of jail free card, maybe just for once.



will you pray for him? more importantly will you pray for the family that can't forgive or see past the surface and dtop judging?



I KNOW God can do great things.

I know the Lord can move mountains

I know the Lord can change hearts in an instant........



Of course i know He gives us free will.
He allows us to choose.

I can be mad at those who are passing judgement, which would make me selfrighteous myself or..

i can choose to NOT be self righteous.

keeping the faith

sitting here looking back on all the things i have experienced throughout my life i am wondering how did i ever make it through? how did i continue to carry on and function? how did i pick up the pieces and move on?
well, i guess i really didn't.
God did. just like my favorite poem, God carried me. not just some of the way, but through my whole life. if we just keep the faith.....
When i was pregnant i went for my very first ultrasound (which incidentally was an intra-vaginal one and if you've had one you KNOW how pleasant those are....)
the nurse practitioner looked up at me and looked at the screen, moved around the "probe" and looked some more. Well i was supposed to be about 8-10 weeks along so....what was the problem?

she looked up at me again and back at the screen.

She removed the probe and without looking at me began to wash her hands and shut down the ultra sound machine.

Picture me half sitting half laying on those spacious exam tables in a semi private gown tied in the front with my vagina hanging out and my husband at my side staring at her.

She comes over and sits down. She looks up at me and says "i can't see the baby".

Oh, i think, is that all? well i must just not be laying right. or maybe the baby is too small.

I sit all the way up and am somewhat relieved at this news.

But she is still looking at me. "i can only see the yolk sac, but no baby and no heart beat and i should be able to see one."

i lost my breath and looked at my husband to see if he can understand this gibberish she is speaking.

He is just staring at her, so i take his cue and stare at her too.

"i think we need to count this pregnancy as a loss. There is nothing there."

WHAT! how did we get here? i can't see or hear anything else at this point. my mouth and nose feel like they are filling up with cotton. I can't speak or even make a noise......and then the tears start to come and my husband is squeezing my hand so hard.......

"you are probably going to start bleeding to expel the baby in the next few days and we will have you back in here in about 2 weeks to be sure the remains are out...."

i am sure she probably said some comforting words some where in there, but even to this day i can't remember much more than what i have written.

I left and didn't know what to say. I didn't want to talk to anyone, let alone see anyone or God forbid TELL anyone.....what would they say? what would they think?

i cried alot and spoke very little. my husband went to work and came home and we ate dinner and life was almost the same except every single time i went to the bathroom i carefully studied and examined every inch of toilet paper waiting for blood. iknow that is graphic but it's the truth. I must have gone to the bathroom every hour for 2 weeks. I stared and stared at the toilet paper. I waited and waited. one very dear friend and family member (one of the few who knew about the situation) spoke to me about her own experience and let me express my feelings.
Mostly i waited and waited for a miscarriage that never came. My husband was there for me hugging me and comforting me and he took care of me in a way no one else could have. I am truly grateful the the Lord gave him to me, no one else would have been enough.

I went back to the doctor 2 weeks later and there on the ultra sound screen was the most beautiful sight i have ever laid eyes on....

a gray blur blinking about 150 times a minute.

A heart beat.

Dominic.

I cannot explain it. I cannot understand it. I do not know what happened.

But it doesn't matter, because God knew all along. He knew what he was doing and He knew the plan, and all i had to do was sit back and.....

Keep the faith.

i come to the garden

Create your own family sticker graphic at pYzam.com

come as you are

So my husband and i were talking about being a christian earlier this week and we were thinking about some of the reasons why we are currently choosing not to go to church.
I think mainly the reason is at the churches we have been to, many people there are hypocrites.
I am sure there are hypocrites where ever you go, but it seems that maybe there should be a few less at church. We have been to many churches over the years and the experience has been more or less the same.

Jesus says to us to come as we are, or does He?

Well, technically no. He tells us to come as sinners to find the truth. There is no phrase in the Bible that says come as we are. It doesn't mean we need to change ourselves and be free of sin when we come, (how could we do that on our own?) it means come how you are with a heart willing to change for the Lord.

1 Timothy 2:3-5
.......God our Savior who wants all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ.

He wants ALL of us to be saved. Not just rich people, not just those who go to church every Sunday, not just those who pray before dinner, he wants EVERYONE. He wants us to come to Him on our own willingly. He wants us to come if we smoke, He wants us to come if we drink, he wants us to come if we have holes in our clothes, he wants us to come if we sleep under a newspaper every night.

And yet at our very own establishments, this does not happen. Oh sure we have our "ministries to the poor people". We go to their homes, their schools, we keep them there (our brand new pews would get dirty?) and we tell them what they should be doing, and we give them food. And we leave and come home and talk about what a good thing we did. And i am sure there are some who did it with a pure heart. and some who did it to spend time with their friends, and some who were forced by their parents or their spouse.

When we get together on Sunday mornings, we sing and pray and have communion and messages, all in the same order, stand up, sit down, sing, pray, standup and sing, sit down and listen. All in the same order, over and over again.

We look around at that person whispering, that person passing a note, or that woman whose husband didn't come again, or that teen wearing too much makeup or whoever wearing the same clothes from last week. The moms who take hours getting themselves and their daughters hair curled and dresses fluffed just so. And we think " oh how much more righteous am i? i sit still and listen, i stand and sit, sit and stand. I wear a new dress each week, and i give money every week".

Quite frankly, it makes me sick. I am not trying to judge, or put all people into a stereotyped group, just making observations.

Mark 4:18-20
Still others like seed sown against thorns, hear the word, but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. Others like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop-thirty, sixty or even a hundred times what was sown.

If you are so busy worrying about what everyone else is doing wrong, how can you be listening?

If you sit in judgement of the sins of everyone else, how can you be watching yourself?

No one is with out sin. We wouldn't need Jesus if we were.

Many sins are not obvious, and many are. Just because you can see one sin doesn't mean you don't have your own.

My husband and I feel we should be able to come and worship as we are. we should be able to focus on our hearts and our relationship with God, not what every one else is thinking.

Let me give you an example.

My husband has a mohawk, and stretched out earring holes. I have my nose pierced and a tattoo on the back of my neck. We went to my mother in laws church service maybe 2 years ago. They called them selves contemporary. They were reaching out to the "young people". The moment my husband left the gathering group in the gym (to go the bathroom) he was followed by an older woman who apparently had some standing, and when he stopped to say something to the person working the electronic part of the service, my husband was immediately told by this woman he was out of line and to get back to the group. He was 24 years old!

She judged him. She thought she knew his heart by what he looked like on the outside. She thought his sins must be worse than her own.

My friend (this story happened over 8 years ago) became pregnant out of wedlock. She would not name the father. She hid the pregnancy for as long as she could. When it finally became quite clear, her church gave her an ultimatum. Stand up in front of the church, admit what you've done, name the father, and ask forgiveness, or leave forever.

She left.

Her sin was obvious. But when it comes to sins, there is no rank. It is sin. It is separation from God.

There is only one way to bridge that gap. Not your pastor, not your sunday school teacher, not your good deeds for the poor and needy.

Jesus Christ. He goes before us to God. He wipes our sins clean so God can see us perfect.

He does this for us everytime, we ask. Isn't that amazing?

My point of this is not to ask for invitations to church. I have had many over the years assure me their church isn't like that, i have yet to find it true.

My point is to say next time you find yourself in church looking around at someone who doesn't seem as good as you, or dressed as well, or as holy, stop. Think to your self "now is the time to worship" and redirect your thoughts to the Lord. You never know who might be looking around thinking those things about you.

Next time you see someone in church who doesn't quite fit to the image, don't rush up and try to save them. You can't. Only Jesus can. And since you don't know their heart, maybe they don't need as much saving as you think.

My whole point is, church seems to have become a place to show off how much of a Christian you are. Don't be a part of that. Come as you are, and let others do the same.