Encouraging Word April 8, 2013

"Risk more than others think is safe. Care more than others think is wise. Dream more than others think is practical. Expect more than others think is possible. "

~ Cadet Maxim

…and be defiantly thankful!  Yes, thankful for the adversity in your life, when others put you down because you stick up for your moral values, be grateful for their taunting. When others ask you to join in something you know is not right, and you refuse, be grateful for the test.

   For without adversity we learn nothing. Without testing, we fail. Without questions, faltering, or temptations we are falsely lead to thinking life is easy. We get spoiled. Then something comes along and knocks us flat on our behinds. 

   When I was in my twenties and thirties I thought if you just lived as you ought, everything should work out, be okay. If you are sick, you get well; if you get hurt it won’t be a lot. Now in my fifties, I finally see life is not about avoiding all those things. It’s about building your faith to the point that WHEN those things happen you will trust in God to see you through it.  

Jesus was tempted by the devil to give up all his suffering and enjoy a kingdom here on earth. We too are tempted by the devil to the very same thing. Give up moral values, live temporary in this life and get all your want. Whether it’s greed, all the sex we want with whomever, all the drug taking, fast life choices, and never, ever paying any gratitude to the one Creator who put us here.

   But Jesus didn’t take that bribe.  Jesus, while carrying a hundred pound cross, fell three times. He was God, why did He fall? Why didn’t angels just hold that up for him?  Could it be He was showing us how to get up every time we fall? That’s we can always look to God to help us when we fall?

 

   While getting lashed with  nasty bone crushing whips, Jesus hung on, didn’t die on the spot, but waited for more horrors lashed on the cross to die, he didn’t give up until it was time, until he knew he had finished His mission on earth; to offer himself up as a sacrifice for sin.

How can we hear the story of Jesus and not think of what he did for us? How can WE not do more for others, for ourselves, by living a moral, value filled life after what He did? We don’t want to be made fun of, yet He was. We don’t want to suffer, yet He did.  And it was all for us, not one iota was for himself.

   People made fun of him for risking more than what was safe, for caring more than others thought wise, for dreaming of His Father in heaven who knew and loved Him. And Jesus left behind 11 apostles whom He expected to carry on His Father’s church on earth and even expected Peter, who had denied Him three times, the power to get people to heaven.

   Risk more than others think safe, care more than others think wise, dream more than others think practical and expect more, both out of others and out of yourself because, my friend, we are on a journey that does not end in this life.  It’s not all about what I want in life. It’s about looking forward to a better place where all the trials are gone and life goes on forever!