Dana's Christian Journey

musings of a thankful cancer survivor

Author: Dana

  • party

    —

    Dana

    partyWilkes turned two this week and Saturday we had a party. All three of our grandchildren had a blast! Of course, Wilkes was the center of attention, but nine-month old Owen seemed to enjoy himself too. And though we couldn’t see her, I think Wilkes’ little sister also had a grand time.

    Toddlers, babies, and children still in the womb have a great perspective on life: “If I have everything I need – nourishment, proper rest, love – I am happy. Why worry if my parents are taking care of me?”

    Jesus wanted to convey this simple message to those He encountered on earth. “Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds in the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” (Matthew 6:25-27)

    Jesus also spoke what parents and grandparents feel about protecting their little ones. “If anyone causes one of these little ones – those who believe in Me – to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” (Matthew 18:6)

    macyOn the day of the party, Emma had a 3-D ultrasound. Here’s Macy a few weeks from a birthday. His works are wonderful…

    “For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”
    Psalm 139:13-14

  • compel

    —

    Dana

    I read recently of a man named Myo Zaw who lives in an Asian country. He was an alcoholic who abused his wife and children and shamed his community until he met Jesus and became a changed man. At first people thought he had gone crazy because all Myo Zaw wanted to talk about was the love of God that saved him. But Myo Zaw knew he was not crazy; he was redeemed.

    Myo Zaw felt that he needed to take the story of Jesus to others, so over the course of three years he walked to more than a hundred communities telling “how a sinner like me was found by God.” His wife supported him and committed to pray, telling him: “if your life can change by Christ, there is no one who cannot be changed by Christ.”

    Eventually Myo Zaw and all his family moved to a place very hostile to Christianity. Though persecuted at first, the family trusted Christ to let His love be known. After fourteen years, the people of the village seem to now understand that there is a God who loves at all cost. Myo Zaw said of his new community: “My love has become deeper for them. I care for them more. That’s why I don’t want to go back to my hometown. That is why I would like to sacrifice my whole life for them.”

    God loving us results in us loving others. “For Christ’s love compels us…,” Paul wrote as he shared the desire for all to be reconciled to God. Myo Zaw must have thought: “If God forgave me of all my wrongs and if He has changed me into a kinder husband and father who does not get drunk and violent, then he can do this for others. If Jesus loves me, He loves everyone!”

    The better we know God, the more we know love. The closer we follow Christ, the more we love like Jesus. The more we yield to the Spirit, the more we live in love.

    “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know Him better.” Ephesians 1:17

    “I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the full measure of all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:16-19

    “We love because He first loved us.” I John 4:19

    Myo Zaw story from GFA World magazine, K. P. Yohannan editor, March 2017 issue, pp 9-11

  • maturity

    —

    Dana

    “Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly – mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly?” (I Corinthians 3:1-3)

    img_0872Kinsey’s husband Jordan went to a conference in Philadelphia last week so she and Owen got to come visit. While Susan and Kinsey ran an errand Saturday morning, I was asked to feed the baby… who only has two teeth. No bacon and eggs for Owen… only gooey baby food and milk.

    Though Paul told his brothers and sisters in Corinth that they were the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, he said it was clear they were not living by the Spirit. Though they should have been mature, they were ‘mere infants.’ Paul called them ‘worldly’ because they could not get along.

    What are signs of maturity in Christ? What is the difference between the ‘worldly’ Christian and the Christian who lives by the Spirit? Since ‘God is love’ and the Gospel is centered in the Father sacrificing His Son for the salvation of the world, I would propose that the most mature are those whose lives are most consumed with the love of God. The most mature are those who love like Jesus loves.

    I asked Kinsey to share anything that had been on her heart at church Sunday. In her younger days, our oldest daughter was a pretty good math student, so I was not surprised as she shared in a logical, forthright manner words from John. Perhaps this is a path to maturity.

    How do I know if I really love Jesus? “Whoever has My commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves Me.” (John 14:21)

    What are His commands? “And this is His command: to believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as He commanded us.” (I John 3:23)

    How do I love? “Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.” (I John 3:18) “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” (John 13:34)

    How did Jesus love? “He began to wash His disciples’ feet…” (John 13:5) “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.” (I John 3:16)

    “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” I Corinthians 13:13

    “Those who obey His commands live in Him, and He in them. And this is how we know that He lives in us: we know it by the Spirit He gave us.” I John 3:24

  • Trinity

    —

    Dana

    Paul was called to do many things after his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus in Syria… a country still very much in the news. Establishing and encouraging churches, addressing specific problems, warning of Satan’s strategies… were objectives of this man who the Lord called His “chosen instrument to carry My name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel.” (Acts 9:15) “Carrying Jesus’ name” was Paul’s main goal. How did he do this?

    When he visited cities and towns, Paul did not want his talents or abilities to be the focus of attention. “When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and preaching were not with persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.” (I Corinthians 2:1-5)

    Paul constantly pointed to the Father, Son, and Spirit; he was Trinity-centered. In the first three chapters of his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul mentioned God fifty-two times, Christ or Lord thirty times, and the Spirit twelve times. In seventy verses, the Persons of the Trinity are mentioned ninety-four times.

    Paul clearly wanted all readers to know that his message is from God, the Creator of all, who planned to save His children through Jesus, His Son. And the promised Holy Spirit is the essential gift we must have to live an abundant life in Christ.

    So what does this mean for us today? Though we live two thousand years later, we have as many problems as did Corinth… and our hope is the same. This hope is not found in an elite education or amassed wealth or a political movement or any type of human plans… the hope is only in Jesus. Christ is the Answer and, as in the days of Paul, the world will reject this message.

    Wherever we live, whatever our occupation, no matter what our status… God wants us to be Trinity-centered. “You yourselves are God’s temple and God’s Spirit lives in you.” (3:16) “Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.” (1:22) “Jesus Christ has become our wisdom from God – that is our righteousness, holiness, and redemption.” (1:30) “We have the mind of Christ.” (2:16)

    We might say, “A person will be laughed off the stage if he constantly points to Jesus.” But Paul concluded: “So be it. My message is Christ because that’s God’s message. There is no hope in man. I trust the Holy Spirit and I do not mind being a ‘fool’ as long as I am in Him.”

    “Do not deceive yourselves. If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a ‘fool’ so that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: ‘He catches the wise in their craftiness’; and again, ‘The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.’ So then, no more boasting about men! All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future – all are yours, and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God.” I Corinthians 3:18-23

  • boasting

    —

    Dana

    “Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father… Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and that the Father is in Me? The words I say are not My own. Rather, it is the Father, living in Me, who is doing His work. Believe Me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me…” (John 14:9-11)

    Just as Jesus attributed everything good to His Father, so we are to attribute everything good to Jesus. Joy, peace, love, self-control, kindness… any fruit evident in our lives comes from above. Such thinking perhaps sounds boastful, but our boasting is in the Lord. When we know we cannot generate godliness on our own, we can honestly say: “What you see is Jesus!”

    Perhaps it should be normal for believers to give testimonies and explanations that give all credit to the Father, Son, and Spirit:

    I do not reflect Him perfectly, but if you knew me before, you would see there has been a change of heart. That’s what God does… He gives us a new heart. Jesus lives in me. I cannot explain this fully, but it is the mysterious way God has chosen to work: “Christ in us – the hope of glory.”

    Jesus taught that a disciple could do nothing apart from Him. So the secret for the believer is simply to be a branch who abides in the perfect Vine. “Remain in Me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the Vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in Me. I am the Vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in Me and I in Him, he will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing.”

    Don’t you see? Anything good is because of Christ. Jesus not only forgives us; He changes us! The “old me” is dead, but I am now truly alive. “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

    He gave Himself for you too! He gave Himself for the whole world so that every person could have a relationship with our Father in Heaven. This is God’s heart of love: He gave the most precious gift – His Son – so that anyone who puts faith in Him will be saved. I just wish everyone could understand this good news.

    “We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.” I Corinthians 2:12

    “It is because of Him (God) that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God – that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: ‘Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.’” I Corinthians 1:30-31

Random Post

Categories

Archives