Your Mission…

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God has given us all missions. Jesus sent us all to make disciples. God has a mission for you – a mission to bring Him glory and honor.

Things to know about your mission…

1. God-given missions never contradict God’s word

2. God-given missions are beyond your abilities that is why you have God and why they are God-given.

3. God has gifted, shaped, and directed your life (sin, painful, dark times and all) to prepare you for your mission.

4. You have a mission now. God wants to use you as a kid, a mother of young kids, a grandparent, a barren woman, a single man, a married couple, a senior adult, etc. Your mission never ends and it begins the moment you accept Jesus as your savior. From then on you are His and you are on mission for Him.

Jesus had a mission too. This holy week, I want you to think about His mission. Born to die for our sins that we may live with Him in eternity. What a SAVIOR!

Now I have a mission for you as well…If you choose to accept it. 😉 My new blog is ready for prime time…YEA!!!!!!! The kicker? Even if you subscribe to this blog, I need you to sign up again on my new blog. I tried to import you all, but feedburner would not let me do it. So kindly meet me over there and tomorrow (Good Friday) there will be a give away for the official opening day of Rethinking My Thinking’s new blog! Click on over here and join me at my new home!!!

Pay Attention…

My blood pressure sky rockets as I say the same sentence for what feels like the millionth time. My words are unheeded. Water continues to fill the cup held by a small hand. The cup overflows. My floor is wet.

He didn’t pay attention.

As a rule we all need to pay attention or life can pass us by. One second we are sitting in high school waiting for life to begin and the next we are laying in a hospital bed wondering what happened in between.

As believers in Jesus, the God-man, the Word made flesh, our Passover Lamb, we are to pay attention as well. Hebrews 2:1 says, “We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.” Hebrews chapter one is all about who Jesus is. That He is the God-man, not an angel, but fully God and fully man. Already there were people who were trying misrepresent Jesus. They were trying to say He wasn’t God.

So the writer of Hebrews tells us to pay attention. He doesn’t say pay attention to all these great thinkers. These men who have wonderful ideas that “feel” right or fit your idea of how God would do things. No this writer tells us don’t focus on all the counterfeit arguments. Focus on what is real. The people who received this letter did not have a Bible like we do today. Most likely many couldn’t read, instead they heard the epistles (that fancy word for letters) and the gospels read aloud. Some of these ancient readers or listeners may have even known some of the disciples or apostles personally. So this writer is telling these people to pay attention to the truth.

Today we have God’s word bound in leather, cardboard, paper, or even unbound (electronically). So we need to pay attention to what we have heard in God’s word. Not some fancy speaker’s amazingly crafted speech or a pastor’s wonderfully worded book. No we need to pay MORE CAREFUL ATTENTION to God’s word. Why? So we don’t drift away. So we aren’t led astray. So we build our faith on true knowledge, on the truth of God’s word.

Are you distracted from God’s word? Are you focused on thoughts, ideas, figuring out God’s plan and redemption in your human mind? How do you think you can refocus on God’s word?

Are you paying attention to God’s word? What are you doing to “pay more careful attention” to His word? What can you do to help your attention span?

I can’t wait to hear from you all! Join in, comment, become a facebook fan, consider getting e-mail updates. Thanks for stopping by!

Have Mercy!

Someone asked me knowing what I know now what I would tell my sixteen-year-old self if I could go back in time.

Sixteen…Driving…High School…After school job…Kansas Bible Camp…Debate/Forensics (speaking tournaments not CSI type stuff)…Youth Group…

I was the “good little Christian girl.” I carried my Bible to school. I helped lead a Bible Study (held off campus on Thursday nights). I spent summers working at Kansas Bible Camp. I went to church every Sunday and since my church was too small for a youth group I went to Topeka Bible Church on Sunday nights for youth stuff. I prayed at See ya at the Pole events.

I looked great on the outside. Oh, but I missed out on something. Somehow I thought I was smart enough to figure out that I needed God. Everyone who hadn’t figured out they needed Jesus were less intelligent than me.

I stood in judgment of those who were not following Jesus. Instead of extending grace, I looked down. Instead of considering someone’s story, held them accountable for what I had experienced. Surely everyone heard of Jesus, surely they should know. I did not realize the depth of my need. Instead I decided who was worthy of God’s love.

I fear I pushed more away from God than towards Him. I behaved like a self-righteous Pharisee and I looked great on the outside, while on the inside I was a rotting corpse. I missed grace and mercy. I read James and didn’t apply verses like:

“Act and speak as those who will be judged by the law that gives freedom because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.” James 2:12-13

I am grateful that God’s mercy extended to even me. I have since become aware that I am helpless and hopeless without Jesus. I am aware of the ugliness of my sin and my desperate need for grace and mercy. Since God has made me aware of this, I am more able to offer mercy and grace to others.

How about you? What would you tell your 16 year-old self?