| | Blessings to you all!
You know...
God is in control.
God loves you.
God wants to do wonderful things in your life.
And He will, if you let Him!
I am just so thrilled to have Him as my friend. He is my source of life and I just want to publically praise Him today.
Father, you deserve ALL praise, glory and honor! You are my Rest. I rest easy in You.
Well, that was for free. (*laugh out loud) I just wanted to take a moment and share what was bubbling up in my spirit just then. Today we have some new messages online for you to listen to, and Nicole put together something for you below, that God gave to her recently.
The two new messages online are Best Talents & The Plan of Evangelism.
I'll say that The Plan of Evangelism is probably not what you think it is and Best Talents goes to the Word for insight into what our ability and responsibility is, as Christians.
You can find all the messages at http://audio.xanga.com/wrightministry Enjoy them!
I know you'll also really enjoy Nicole's "Get Real!" below. I did.
Be BLESSED in JESUS name!
Bryan
Get Real!
Bryan and I have a friend (whaat!?! A friend? No way!). For real!! Okay, anyway!
Bryan and I really do have a friend. We’ll call him Harry. (real original huh Harry?!) Anyone who knows Harry knows that Harry is a trip. He’s one of those guys who, what you see is what you get. It doesn’t matter who you are, he is what he is. He’s got that sarcastic wit and a back pocket full of stories that when combined, will have you rolling all afternoon. And yet, despite his sarcasm, he has a respect for people that manifests in the life he lives. He is charismatic yet laid back. He just draws people to him. Why?! Because he is Harry. People appreciate his genuineness. They don’t have to worry about weeding through the façade and figuring out what he is really trying to say or what his motives are. He’s already told you.
Well that’s great Nicole. You have a friend. He’s great. I’m happy for you. So what’s your point? Well, I’m glad you asked.
My point is that people appreciate a genuine personality. We love people who are themselves around us & don’t act one way with us but are completely different with someone else. God is no different. Harry is often telling us something that God told him or a conversation they’ve had and even sometimes, he’ll tell us how God will laugh at him when he says something stupid to God. Now unruffle your religious feathers. He does speak to us through His Holy Spirit. God does have a personality. He does laugh. How do I know? Well, because He tells us in His word. Genesis 1:26 says, “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”. This tells us that we can look in the mirror and see a part of God. We can listen to ourselves and hear part of His personality. He is All in all! There is nothing good that we have that didn’t come from Him. That includes a good personality.
So back to Harry. I was thinking about him this morning and about his relationship with God. And I was thinking about this revival going on in Florida and how so many lives are being touched. Then I asked God, why is it that Harry, those people at the revival and some of us find it easier to get close to You, while others seem to struggle to know who You really are. That is when He told me that all it takes is for us to “Get Real”! We have to stop thinking that God is so heavenly that He is untouchable by earthlings. One thing that separates God from other man-made gods, is that He is obtainable. We can reach out to Him and He IS there waiting to take us in His arms, just like any good daddy would do. He WANTS to have a relationship with us. He wants to talk to us. The problem is that we often think He doesn’t speak English. We think that we have to pray in some King James-like language or all holy and reverent. Well think of it this way:
If your child came to you and said, “Oh great parental, thou art great amongst humankind. Mayest mine friends and I goest to the beckoning mall?” You’d think they’d been sniffing the Elmer’s at school.
Or how about this prayer:
“Oh all governing parental figure, thou clutched thee to thy breast as a babe. Whenest I hungered, thou fed me. Whenest I thirsted, thou made kool-aid with thine own hands. But now all knowing parent, if thou lovest me, willst thou help me whilst I doest thine homework?” You’re response would probably be, “What? Are you practicing for MacBeth or something?”
It sounds funny for our kids to do that. Instead, we want our kids to talk to us, not to act like we are untouchable and hard. We are their parents. We comforted them as a baby & now is no different, we want to be there for them. We want them to talk to us the way they talk to their friends.
I remember when I was growing up, my friends loved my mama. They thought that I was the luckiest girl because my mama was so cool. They couldn’t relate to the way she and I would just talk about anything. Now don’t get me wrong, I think my mama is absolutely wonderful & I know that I am blessed to be her child. However, my friends had great moms too. The difference was that they separated themselves from their mothers. They saw her as an authority figure and that was it. A lot of them now, since they’ve grown up, have realized that she is so much more. That is great for them now, but look at the time they wasted. The years that their mothers longed for them to truly know her love for them and understand who she really is. This is how God is. He loves Harry beyond words. He loves these people at the revival. But He also adores YOU! He just wants you to be real so that you can really get to know Him.
But Nicole, He’s God. He’s Holy. He doesn’t deal with life the way we do. Beg your pardon?
He is the one, alone on the mountain facing temptation. (Matthew 4:1-11)
He is a friend who mourns the death of a brother. (John 11:32-36)
He is the one hurting as the world has turned their back on Him. (Gen. 6:5; Matt. 26:67)
He is the person betrayed by one of His closest friends. (Luke 22:47)
He is the person who is looking for an easier path. (Matthew 26:37-39)
He is someone who just wants to help others. (See entire Bible)
God does understand you. He became flesh and experienced life with all of it’s joys and all it’s sufferings, then He experienced an excruciating death. He experienced pain, both emotional and physical, far greater than any of us will ever know. Therefore, we cannot go through one thing in this life that He cannot relate to and guide us through. We can go to Him with anything, speaking our own language, and just talk to Him about it. Good or bad, He just wants you to talk to Him. You don’t have to wait for death & hope that you have lived a life good enough to maybe meet Him one day. You can know and talk to God today. He will talk to you, grieve with you, laugh with you and even laugh at you! God loves us enough, that even in our misunderstanding of Him, He will still reach out to us and bless us. But if you want to have a complete relationship with Him, you have to Get Real!!
-Nicole
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| | Posted 7/17/2008 12:41 AM - 36 Views - 6 eProps - 3 comments
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