God, however, likes to surprise us.
He enjoys blessing His children.
And so Christmas morning He graciously gifted me with the extra time for which I had prayed.
I wasn't so sure about the way the morning began, since getting up at 5:15 with the 3-year old wasn't in my perfect vision of how the holiday would go. BUT, after getting a few other things ready for our Christmas breakfast, she fell asleep in my office chair, and I was up, alone, to enjoy the silence.
Seizing the opportunity, I grabbed my Bible and my journal, which had been cracked open for over a week due to busyness. Time seemed to pass slowly as I poured over God's Word, flipping from one passage to another as He guided my hand and spoke to my heart. As I listened, I wrote. Looking back, I filled EIGHT PAGES in my journal!
Let me just say there is something special about feeling the page between your fingers, actually turning the page, and touching the very words of God as opposed to staring at a screen and swiping my hand to get to the next portion of the passage.
I started in 1 Peter 2:13-25, continuing in the chapter I been reading on my phone with my Bible app throughout the week.
Long story short, I see that God has called me to live an honorable life such that no one can truthfully say anything bad about me. I am told to live this way even if doing so results in suffering, for I am a disciple of Jesus and should only expect to follow the example He set for me. You see, He "personally carried MY sins (and yours) in His body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin and LIVE FOR WHAT IS RIGHT. By His wounds we are healed..."
Blown away by God's amazing grace to extend salvation to such a wretch as me, I go on reading how I "ONCE was like a sheep who wandered away, but NOW I have turned to my Shepherd, the Guardian of my soul..."
Secret about me - I love grammar. Diagramming sentences actually gives me great joy!
I know some of you, probably most of you, are rolling your eyes and groaing just about now. You should have heard my 5th grade students when I used to teach...
My love for grammar caused me to stop and take note of the past tense and present tense displayed in this verse - I ONCE was like a sheep, but NOW I have turned to my Shepherd..."
I am no longer lost.
I have been found.
I am no longer dead to sin.
I am now alive, in Christ - because of Christ.
A complete change has taken place.
I immediately flipped over to 2 Corinthians 5:17:
But God didn't want me to stop with that famous verse. He had more for me to see and learn, so I kept going. What I read struck me deeply:
"And all this is a gift from God, who brought us back to Himself through Christ.
And God has given us this task of reconciling people to Him...
He gave us this wonderful message of reconcilation.
So we are Christ's AMBASSADORS;
God is making His appeal through us.
We speak for Christ when we plead, 'Come back to God!'"
First, how privileged I am to be given such a task!!!
God has entrusted me with the job, the ministry, of bringing people to Him, of inviting them into a relationship with Him, of dwelling in His presence, and experiencing Him work in their lives in radical ways.
How totally amazing is that!!!
The word AMBASSADOR flew off the page.
You see, for the past 23 months, I have been part of a wonderful natural health and wellness company. One of the ranks we distributors can achieve is AMBASSADOR. It is the top rank (other than the prestigious Black Diamonds). It has been my goal to reach the rank of AMBASSADOR since the day I started (February 9, 2013). I have not quite fulfilled that dream yet, but on this Christmas morning, God showed me that I have not fallen short. Quite the opposite, He reminded me that I am ALREADY His Ambassador.
No matter what title I have with It Works
No matter how much money I ever earn
No matter how many books I write
No matter how many children I have
No matter anything I have done in the past, am doing currently, or will do in the future
I AM ALREADY AN
My life is my message, lived out for all to see and hear.
As people watch me and listen to me, they should witness God's love in all I do and say.
They should know they too can have a personal relationship with Him, be made new, and experience Him at work in their lives.
My life should bear testimony to this!
These thoughts brought to mind another passage in 2 Corinthians, a bit earlier in Paul's letter to the church there in Corinth. In chapter 3, he writes:
Clearly, your lives are a letter from Christ showing the result of our ministry among you.
Again, I see that my life should point to Christ.
When people look at me, they should recognize Jesus.
His love and grace and mercy and power and hope and joy and peace and strength should be on display for all to see.
Indeed, my life, this letter for all to read, "is not written with pen and ink, but with the Spirit of the living God. It is carved not on tablets of stone, but on human hearts."
Before I get too carried away with myself, thinking I am all that and a bag of chips, I am clearly assured none of this is of me. Not at all. Rather:
"We are confident of all this because of the great trust in God through Christ.
It is NOT that we think we are qualified to do anything on our own.
Our qualification comes from God!
HE has enabled us to be ministers of His new covenant.
This is a covenant not of written laws, but of the Spirit.
The old written covenant ends in death; but under the new covenant, the Spirit gives life.
Once more, we see that past tesne and present tense distinction.
Death is no more.
God has come that we might have life, and life abundantly at that (see John 10:10)!
I also thank God that this abundant life, the success of the ministry God has given me, does NOT depend on me, but fully on HIM! He enables me. He equips me. Certainly, He has given me all I need for this task. Back in 2 Peter we are told:
By His divine power, God has given us EVERYTHING we need for living a godly life.
We have received ALL of this by coming to know Him,
the One who called us to Himself by means of His marvelous glory and excellence.
With this blessed promise in mind, I can go forth boldly, confident, courageous.
Those adjectives (see my love for grammar coming out) lead me to Joshua 1:6-9:
I actually studied the life of Joshua farily in-depth earlier in 2014, so God was simply confirming once more how He has called me to step out and live by faith, to be bold and courageous, to go all out as I seek Him and strive to make Him known in all I do.
Amazed at what God was speaking to me, I turned back to 2 Corinthians 3 and was floored even more as I read how I am able to understand God's Word because the veil has been removed because of my belief in Christ (see verses 14-16). Furthermore, I now have FREEDOM in Christ. AND on top of that, "all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord - who is the Spirt - makes us more and mroe like Him as we are changed into His glorious image!"
Did you catch that?
I hope so!
Go back, see it there at the end, we are CHANGED INTO HIS GLORIOUS IMAGE!!!
How ridiculously incredible is that?!
Talk about a transformation!!
Once a wandering sheep, lost and destined for eternal condemnation.
NOW a child of the King, deeply loved and being changed into the very image of God Himself!
Flabergasted and humbled and filled with an overwhelming sense of gratitude, I quickly leafed through my Bible to Hebrews 10:
"And so, we can boldly enter heaven's Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus...
let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts, fully trusting Him.
For our guilty consciencs have been sprinkled with Christ's blood to make us clean,
and our bodies have been washed with pure water."
There it is again.
The old is gone. The new has come.
And so we can, "hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep His promises (remember those great promises from 2 Peter about giving us all we need to live for Him and the promise from Joshua to always be with us wherever we go). Let us think of ways to motivate one another to love and good deeds."
Once more, I see how my life is to be a living testimony of God's love. Throughout my daily life, people should see Jesus clearly in all I do and say.
1 John 3 speaks to this as well, "See how very much our Father loves us, for He calls us His children, and that is what we are! But the people who belong to this world don't recognize that we are God's children because they don't know Him. Dear friends, we are ALREADY God's children, but He has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do KNOW that we WILL BE LIKE HIM, for we will see Him as He really is."
I hope you saw not only how we WILL BE transformed, but how we ARE ALREADY God's children. Dearly LOVED.
And being loved of God, I should then love others.
Love proves I have passed from death to life - that I am made new.
Jesus Himself showed us real love through His death on the cross (see Romans 5:8).
So then, being His disciple, being God's child chosen and deeply loved, my actions, my very LIFE, should display and reflect God's love.
Indeed, my actions should show that I belong to the Truth.
This is only possible because the Spirit lives in me.
And as He does I bear fruit, HIS fruit...
Furthermore, I an CALLED TO DO GOOD.
I am created for this very purpose.
See also Psalm 139 and Jeremiah 1:5
I have been given new life.
I am being transformed.
Through this entire process, my life is a letter, a movie, for all to read and see God at work, to understand His love, and to respond to His message of reconciliation.
No matter what title I may have here on earth
No matter my rank with It Works
I am a child of God
I am His Ambassador
I am called
I am equipped through the power of the Holy Spirit who lives in me.
So then, as God puts dreams in my heart, I MUST act on faith and trust Him to fulfill and work out the very plans and purposes for which He created me.
I need to be BOLD with my message.
People NEED to hear, to know, to believe.
"But how can they call on Him to save them unless they believe in Him?
And how can they believe in Him if they have never heard about Him?
And how can they hear about Him unless someone tells them?
And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent?
That is why the Scriptures say, 'How beautiful are the feet of messengers who bring good news!'"
And to that, I say, "HERE I AM LORD!!! SEND ME!!"
I may not know what the future holds.
I don't know what all 2015 will bring.
But this I do know:
I am following HARD after God.
I am making the most of EVERY day.
I am passionately pursuing Jesus, to know Him more so that I might make Him known and better proclaim the glory of His awesome name.
My life has purpose.
A holy, divine purpose.
But my life is short.
My days here on this earth are fleeing.
And thus I must work with purpose, with URGENCY, for the mission I have been given is of utmost importance. People's souls are on the line.
I may not be an Ambassor with It Works (yet), but I proudly accept my titles as a child of God, a daughter of the King, an AMBASSADOR of Christ!!!!
And will BOLDLY and courageously live out this calling.
Will YOU join me?
For you too have been called...
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