Wednesday, November 24, 2010

I'm Ron Burgundy?




Alright, so Will Ferrell is one of the funniest comic actors today and arguably Anchorman is his best film. However, you may be wondering why I'm choosing to talk about Anchorman after all the talk about Jesus. Well you can find God's truth anywhere if you look hard enough for it, and I believe I've found it in this particular scene.

This isn't the best clip out there but the only one I could find of this scene. So for a little background knowledge for those of you who haven't seen the movie, - Uh oh...Spoiler Alert...to a six years old movie - Ron Burgundy is the top anchorman is San Diego until a female co-worker joins his team who eventually becomes co-anchors with Ron and for certain reasons gets Ron fired yadda yadda yadda... It's not really important how he got there but up to this point in the clip Ron is unemployed and in the worst slump of his life, going as far as wigging out in a telephone booth as he yells, "I'm in a glass case of emotion!"

In this clip, he's sitting in bar when he gets a phone call for him to come do a news story. He goes into the bathroom, gets cleaned up, comes out and decides to call his ever faithful news team. Upon calling for them, he then realizes that they had been with him the whole time.

Sound familiar?

How often have we been in the worst slumps of our lives, believing that God had forsaken us? Then when we call out to Him only to realize that He was there through all of it. It was only when we finally called out to Him that we realized He was present.

He was always there. He always will be, waiting for us to cry out to Him.

God will never leave us, nor will He abandon us. Deuteronomy 31:6 says, "Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” God is faithful! In the best of times, in the worst of times, you can rest assured knowing He is there and that He loves you.

So friends, if you're in the dumps, if you're just coasting by, or if you've got it made and you don't know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, would you ask Him to assemble in your heart. He's already there waiting on you, waiting on you to call out to Him.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Blocks of Marble


"In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it." - Michelangelo

God is a brilliant artist. You may be familiar with a few of His works. you know the Sun and stars, the Moon, the Earth and all that's on it. Everything in all creation has His signature on it. One of His greatest creations is....us! He made us in His image, in His image He made us, male and female He made us! (Genesis 1:27) Along the way though we got a little messed up with sin, E.G White says it this way in The Desire of Ages, " now sin has marred God's perfect work, yet that handwriting remains."

Back to the marble. We as humans are like that block of stone, and like I said God is the artist. On this earth we are imperfect, but God looks at us beyond that. As the redeemed, He already sees us as in our perfect bodies that we will one day have. In Colossians 1:21-22, Paul says this, "Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now He has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in His sight, without blemish and free from accusation."

Holy in His sight, free from accusation!

Now does that mean we are free from sin and free to sin? Not hardly. We are always at war with ourselves between our flesh and our spirit. That's why God as the sculptor is "hewing away the rough walls that imprison" us so others may see us as He sees us. Just as the rest of creation reflects Him so must we. In other words so we may bear fruit. We are the branches, Jesus is the vine, and the Father is the gardener. As the gardener, God is pruning our branches so we may be more fruitful (John 15). Just as God the sculptor is hewing the rough walls revealing the spirit in us.

God sees us as shaped and perfect in attitude and action! Do you?

In closing, never forget "We are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that we may declare the praises of Him who called us out of darkness into His wonderful light (1 Peter 2:9).

Bridges

A short time ago, I went through a phase, if you will, where I was really into photography. I still like photography and may take the occasional photo, but it doesn't possess me like it used to. During this phase, one of my favorite things to capture were bridges. There's a few reasons for this. First, I like lines and bridges have lots of them. Second, they're just aesthetically pleasing to me. Lastly, my imagination got the best of me. I would imagine that one day I would find a bridge that would take me away to somewhere else, anywhere else away from my average, troubled life.

There is no bridge of this sort, only ones I envisaged.

But there IS a bridge. Not a bridge of metal, wood, or stone but a man. That man is the Son of God, Jesus Christ.

When sin entered the world, it carved a canyon that we could not cross. A gorge between a sinful world and a righteous, Heavenly Father. 

 By the wood that He hung upon, by the metal that was hammered into His hands, and by the stone that was rolled out of the way of His grave, Jesus built a bridge. A bridge that nothing or no one can destroy. A bridge connecting this world to the Father. By this bridge we are saved. "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God" (Ephesians 2:8)

 Like any bridge you may cross, you have faith that it will not collapse. Why not the bridge that never can and never will?


Monday, November 22, 2010

Overcome

Overcome. That's a powerful word. Here's what Google has to say about it:
   
 o·ver·come/ˌōvərˈkəm/Verb

1. Succeed in dealing with (a problem or difficulty).
2. Defeat (an opponent); prevail: "they overcame the guards"; "we shall overcome".

I've been thinking about this word the past few days. One of my dear friend's favorite bible verses is John 16:33, in which Jesus states, "I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” Upon reflecting on this verse I begin to realize all of the things that I have overcome in my own life through my faith in Christ Jesus. Understanding this fully would require understanding my testimony, something I will put on here soon. 


There's a lot going on in and around this verse though. Before this verse Jesus was talking with His disciples telling them that “in a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me,” referring to His death, resurrection, and then His return to the Father. He says, "I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have peace." We are to rest assured knowing that Jesus is the Son of God, that He died on the cross bearing our sins, three days later was raised from the dead, ascended into Heaven, and is ultimately going to make His return. He's got everything under control.

Jesus goes on to say "in this world you will have trouble." While we are living here in the world at this time, we are going to have trouble. Life's not going to be easy. We're going to have problems. Big problems. Small problems. Difficulties. Worries. Pain. Sufferings.

"But take heart." Gain courage!

"For I have overcome the world." Jesus Christ the Son of God stepped down from His Heavenly Throne, humbling Himself in our likeness, living a tempted but sinless life, to bear our punishment, to overcome the world.

The plan to keep us away from God was made long ago in the Garden of Eden, foreseeing this God made His plans to reconcile His creation to Him out of love, "greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13) It was in the moment that Jesus hung from the cross, suffering from the weight of our sins, that He was closest to the race of man. Likewise, it is often in our sufferings that we are closest to God. We can truly take heart and find comfort as believers knowing that we have the Spirit of God, a spirit of power and great authority. It is with the Spirit through Jesus Christ that we, too, may overcome the world and all of it's troubles.

First Post

Ah, the infamous first post. We meet at last! So I guess this is where I'm supposed to say what this blog is about and what I'm going to do with it. Frankly, I have no idea. There's a lot going on this ol' noggin, there's no telling what's going to come spilling out. One thing I do know is I believe that God is a true, living being who's always there with me. That being said, (Corny Alert) I'm on a journey and God's in the driver's seat. I tried to warn you, it's going to get corny. Hopefully, things will be a little more original than that though. This will be a journal of sorts on that journey. A journal full of things I've learned, reflections on ponders I've had, and opinions on things that may not matter so much and things that maybe do matter as much. Honestly, I'm kinda excited to see where this is going, until then...

Much love,
Charles