The Breath of Life

The LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

We breath in and we breath out. Take a second to notice your breathing. You are experiencing the wonderful, mysterious breath of life, first placed in our lungs by the Lord God. Our life is sustained by that breath, his breath.

A newborn breathes 30-40 times a minute, and as we grow the number the breaths per minute decrease. Most adults breath 12-20 times per minute, somewhere around 27,000 times a day.

Each breath is a gift of God and is a silent praise to God whether we acknowledge it or not.

What do you think about that?

Repairing Broken Windows

Are you familiar with the broken window theory? It basically says that if you don’t repair a broken window, then you are inviting vandals to break another and then another... It applies to litter and graffiti as well. If you don’t clean it up in a timely manner, then you are inviting more.

What happens when we let little things go unrepaired in our lives?

What do you need to repair today?

Spectator or a Player?

Some have said that the church is like a football game in which thousands of spectators desperately in need of exercise are watching a handful of players desperately in need of rest.

Are you a spectator or a player?

Close?

I took this picture 2 days ago. I have a flower still alive from last Summer! I’ve never seen anything like it. I know our winter has been relatively mild, but we have had temps down in the mid teens a few times, yet this flower has survived. Why?

I think there are two things that are key.

1.) It is located fairly close to the house, about three feet.

2) It is located right next to a big rock.

My theory is that its location next to the house and, more importantly, its location right next to a rock that holds heat from the Sun has kept it alive all winter long.

Seems like a good picture for us: stay close to house of the Lord (church, which is people, of course) and stay tight with Jesus.

"Jesus is a rock in a weary land! A weary land! A weary land!"

Are you close?

What do you need to say?

They say Moses was a basket case. (Sorry.) Poor guy did NOT want to have to speak for God. Listen to his excuses.

Moses raised another objection to God: "Master, please, I don't talk well. I've never been good with words, neither before nor after you spoke to me. I stutter and stammer." God said, "And who do you think made the human mouth? And who makes some mute, some deaf, some sighted, some blind? Isn't it I, God? So, get going. I'll be right there with you—with your mouth! I'll be right there to teach you what to say." (Exodus 4, The Message)

What kind of excuses do we give to justify our silence when words need to be spoken? Words of encouragement perhaps? Maybe even more difficult: words of loving rebuke or challenge?

Who do you need to speak to today? What do you need to say?

Where Do You Stand?

Where you stand determines what you see. Think about that. It’s true no matter how you look at it.

Where do you stand to understand life? Where you stand makes a big difference.

For example: What does it mean to be human? Who are we? The world’s story essentially says, "You are a random product of time and chance, an accident on this spinning ball of mud!"

The Story of God says something drastically different. It says that we are God’s masterpieces! We are God’s handiwork, the highpoint of his creation, his image bearers.

Where do you stand?

Paradise

Genesis 1 & 2 pictures life as we would love to live it! No sin, no shame, no problems, a perfect peaceful environment where God and all of creation, including humanity, are in complete harmony. The work is significant, purposeful, and enjoyable. It’s what we all long for – Paradise!

We had it and then lost it. Read Genesis 3.

The Good News is that, thanks to Jesus, we can have it back.

Revelation 2:7 — He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.

In the meantime we live in hope, overcoming daily by the Spirit of God.

What do you need to overcome today?

Welcome!

Welcome! We hope you'll come by often and think along with us. We'll strive to keep our thoughts short and to the point, and we'll hope that these thoughts will stimulate your thinking. Feel free to makes comments. These will be moderated, so they could be a delay from the time you post them until they show up. As long as they are not obscene, we'll publish what you say.

Check back often! We hope to post several times a week. Our thoughts will come from inside the Story of God. In other words, we believe in God and His Story as found in the Bible. Where you stand determines what you see. We stand inside the Story and that will determine how we see life.