Matthew 22:36-37 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’”
Since the topic of love was brought up by Pässion last time, I thought I’d take a few minutes to really reflect on it.
Love is really the greatest thing God ever created, if you ask me. Love is a vehicle for blessings, good tidings, smiles, warmth of spirit, charity and millions of other positive things.
Love makes us feel secure, welcome, comfortable and content.
Love heals, helps and humbles in order to bring hope and happiness.
Love is unconditional.
Love absorbs anger and reflects compassion.
Love drives one person to help another.
Love feeds and clothes starving children.
Love drowns the fire of sin.
Love wins.
Love is why God designed us. To engage fully in a loving relationship with Him and as a love conduit from Him to one another.
I’ve known all these things for years now, yet I still falter and fail to show God’s love to others all too often. God blessed me with His love, so that I could be a blessing to others. I make a concerted effort to use the talent he gave me to be a blessing to others. I do the same with the treasure He bestows upon me. And, I try to use my time for blessing others as well. If I can do those things, why then, should I not realize it’s never okay to horde His love?
Are you showing love today? Not just to your family and friends, but to the person who cut you off in traffic? The one who fired insults your way? The one who is too broken to realize their actions hurt you? Even the ones who do realize they’re hurting others and continue to do so anyway… Jesus never told us to sit in judgment over who deserves God’s love, he told us to love our neighbor as we do ourselves.
I encourage all who are reading these words to do one thing completely out of pure love today. Not expecting anything in return, but simply in order to fulfill a small moment of your destiny by letting God’s greatest creation flow through you and all over someone else. Show someone else what it means to be loved by God. If you don’t know how, simply ask Him for the opportunity, you may be surprised at how fast He will grant that request.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Christian Republic
I was recently invited to contribute regularly to a new blog over at Christian Republic.
It's an interesting site with lots of good things on it. Check it out if you have some time.
Here's my first blog post over there.
It's an interesting site with lots of good things on it. Check it out if you have some time.
Here's my first blog post over there.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Are you hungry?
When we're hungry, we usually go to the fridge or out to a fast food joint or sit down restaurant and fill our stomachs in an hour or less. For millions of children around the world, there is no fridge, no McDonalds and no Applebees. For them, there's hunger, dirt and little hope.
We spent a few hours yesterday helping a wonderful organization called Feed My Starving Children by packaging meals for starving children around the world. A large group of us from Eagle Brook Church packaged enough meals to feed 136 children for an entire year.
What really blew me away was the math behind it. For $.17 you can feed six children a meal. That's less than the cost of a package of Ramen noodles.
Based on that, for $5, you can feed 176 kids one time. For $10 you can feed 352 kids... So, for about what it costs to grab a cup of fancy-pants coffee and a Mc-Value meal, you can feed one kid for an entire year.
Imagine what you could accomplish in that year, by just giving up $10.50 a week and donating it to Feed My Starving Children... For 52 straight weeks you'd make sure one little boy or girl could go an entire year without going to bed starving.
In America, we waste $10.50 like it's nothing. Spend too much on gas because it's inconvenient to drive a few miles to save five cents a gallon, go ahead and "super size" our meal because extra fries is never a bad thing. Blow $6 on a cup of coffee because "we deserve a treat." Impulse buy at the grocery store, Target, Walmart or any other large retailer simply because something looks good.
How about the stats that show the average American family throws out over $600 of food a year. How about shopping smarter and giving that $600 to Feed My Starving Children?
God calls us to feed His starving children, not fatten ourselves up for the evil one's feast. Unfortunately, Angie and I have wasted far too much doing the later and ignoring the former. But that ends today.
So, I challenge you this week to join us, deny yourself $10.50 worth of whatever it is you indulge in each week and give that to FMSC.org instead. Odds are, donating to FMSC will make you feel a lot more satisfied knowing you just bought lunch for 370 kids, than you would by giving it to Starbucks...
If the widow could give a mite, what can you give?
We spent a few hours yesterday helping a wonderful organization called Feed My Starving Children by packaging meals for starving children around the world. A large group of us from Eagle Brook Church packaged enough meals to feed 136 children for an entire year.
What really blew me away was the math behind it. For $.17 you can feed six children a meal. That's less than the cost of a package of Ramen noodles.
Based on that, for $5, you can feed 176 kids one time. For $10 you can feed 352 kids... So, for about what it costs to grab a cup of fancy-pants coffee and a Mc-Value meal, you can feed one kid for an entire year.
Imagine what you could accomplish in that year, by just giving up $10.50 a week and donating it to Feed My Starving Children... For 52 straight weeks you'd make sure one little boy or girl could go an entire year without going to bed starving.
In America, we waste $10.50 like it's nothing. Spend too much on gas because it's inconvenient to drive a few miles to save five cents a gallon, go ahead and "super size" our meal because extra fries is never a bad thing. Blow $6 on a cup of coffee because "we deserve a treat." Impulse buy at the grocery store, Target, Walmart or any other large retailer simply because something looks good.
How about the stats that show the average American family throws out over $600 of food a year. How about shopping smarter and giving that $600 to Feed My Starving Children?
God calls us to feed His starving children, not fatten ourselves up for the evil one's feast. Unfortunately, Angie and I have wasted far too much doing the later and ignoring the former. But that ends today.
So, I challenge you this week to join us, deny yourself $10.50 worth of whatever it is you indulge in each week and give that to FMSC.org instead. Odds are, donating to FMSC will make you feel a lot more satisfied knowing you just bought lunch for 370 kids, than you would by giving it to Starbucks...
If the widow could give a mite, what can you give?
Monday, February 15, 2010
Blessings
I received a neat devotional about God's blessings the other day and it got me thinking about how much God has blessed me, and how wonderful it is when I step back and look at it.
When I was a little boy, I dreamed of being an astronaut, fighter pilot, football player, rock star and several other crazy little boy dreams. The one I dreamed of the most, however, was to be a professional writer, with a beautiful wife and son. But this dream seemed mediocre in the eyes of a wildly imaginative little boy. I mean, who ever conquered another galaxy simply by being a husband and father?
For years I always wondered why God had never blessed me by making my dreams come true. I'd forgotten about the "mediocre" dream and fixated on my music career, which ended just shy of stardom. My writing career, which puts food on the table, but is far from the lofty dreams I'd had as a kid, and obviously, I've yet to catch the winning touchdown in the Superbowl and despite any wishes to the contrary, it's never going to happen.
Then, one day recently, I was playing with my son when I realized God knew what was best for me, just as I know what's best for my son, but He even more so than me. God had answered my dreams and blessed me with what I really needed. While walking on the moon, or performing music in front of thousands of fans might be cool, it's nothing compared to the blessing of my family.
Thank you, God, for sifting through the crazy dreams of a little boy and blessing the man with what really matters.
When I was a little boy, I dreamed of being an astronaut, fighter pilot, football player, rock star and several other crazy little boy dreams. The one I dreamed of the most, however, was to be a professional writer, with a beautiful wife and son. But this dream seemed mediocre in the eyes of a wildly imaginative little boy. I mean, who ever conquered another galaxy simply by being a husband and father?
For years I always wondered why God had never blessed me by making my dreams come true. I'd forgotten about the "mediocre" dream and fixated on my music career, which ended just shy of stardom. My writing career, which puts food on the table, but is far from the lofty dreams I'd had as a kid, and obviously, I've yet to catch the winning touchdown in the Superbowl and despite any wishes to the contrary, it's never going to happen.
Then, one day recently, I was playing with my son when I realized God knew what was best for me, just as I know what's best for my son, but He even more so than me. God had answered my dreams and blessed me with what I really needed. While walking on the moon, or performing music in front of thousands of fans might be cool, it's nothing compared to the blessing of my family.
Thank you, God, for sifting through the crazy dreams of a little boy and blessing the man with what really matters.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
God's good men
Today we'll be traveling up to Alexandria, Minnesota to celebrate the life of a great man, Ken Deeg Sr. He left this world to join God in Heaven on January 2nd and left behind an awesome son and loving daughter, three excellent grandchildren and a handful of wonderful great-grandchildren.
I didn't know him that well, but from what I know of him, based on what I see in his children, he did great things while here on Earth. Like all of us, he was far from perfect, but he taught his children to be good people, and they passed that on to their children.
A man can do a lot with this life, but if he fails to improve the lives of his own offspring, what has he really done? Ken Deeg Sr. did improve their lives and not only has my wife greatly benefited from having Ken Deeg Jr as her earthly father, my son benefits from having him as a grandfather.
None of that would be possible if God hadn't put Ken Sr here for the past eight decades.
Thanks, God. Thank you for sending one of your good men down here to brighten our lives for a time.
He will be missed.
I didn't know him that well, but from what I know of him, based on what I see in his children, he did great things while here on Earth. Like all of us, he was far from perfect, but he taught his children to be good people, and they passed that on to their children.
A man can do a lot with this life, but if he fails to improve the lives of his own offspring, what has he really done? Ken Deeg Sr. did improve their lives and not only has my wife greatly benefited from having Ken Deeg Jr as her earthly father, my son benefits from having him as a grandfather.
None of that would be possible if God hadn't put Ken Sr here for the past eight decades.
Thanks, God. Thank you for sending one of your good men down here to brighten our lives for a time.
He will be missed.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Too busy...
I've been too busy to post here lately, but wanted to share this great snippet from one of my recent devotionals that came by way of www.crosswalk.com
"Sometimes it is easy for people to think they have many years left. But that is a foolish perspective. We need to live like we will meet with the Lord tonight."
Amen!
"Sometimes it is easy for people to think they have many years left. But that is a foolish perspective. We need to live like we will meet with the Lord tonight."
Amen!
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Update time
*God answered my Christmas wish (and your prayers as well) and sent our friend Christen home on Christmas Eve. She's recovering well, from what I understand and was taken off bed rest the other day. Yay!
*The job I applied for, where I had to answer a question on Christianity, which I posted here a few weeks ago, never responded. Oh well, it was fun to write and hopefully spread a little of God's love into the editor's life. :)
*I just finished explaining what a relationship with Jesus is to a militant atheist/former Catholic. Chances are the words fell on deaf ears, but maybe it put a dent in the defenses he's thrown up to protect himself from religion gone bad. Say a prayer today for anyone in your life who needs to see through the haze of deception and focus on Jesus. Maybe 2010 will be the year they finally see the true light.
Happy New Year!
*The job I applied for, where I had to answer a question on Christianity, which I posted here a few weeks ago, never responded. Oh well, it was fun to write and hopefully spread a little of God's love into the editor's life. :)
*I just finished explaining what a relationship with Jesus is to a militant atheist/former Catholic. Chances are the words fell on deaf ears, but maybe it put a dent in the defenses he's thrown up to protect himself from religion gone bad. Say a prayer today for anyone in your life who needs to see through the haze of deception and focus on Jesus. Maybe 2010 will be the year they finally see the true light.
Happy New Year!
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