Ch. 2 – The Two Lost Sons – Elder Brother

“Act 1 the lost younger brother and Act 2 the lost elder brother.”

As we ended the last journal we saw the the younger son disrespect his father, his family, and his community to live a wild immoral life as his flesh desired. In doing so, he lost all he was given by his father. He mad eit up in his mind that his father’s hired men had it better than him, so he’ll go back and repent and do whatever it takes to be a hired man even though he will no longer be called a son or an heir. Yet, to his surprise his father ran to him with great forgiveness and unconditional love despite his wrong doing. He welcomed him back without a plea for forgiveness, gave him his own robe as a sing that he is his son again and throws the biggest feast he ever has had.

The story doesn’t end there because this message isn’t just for the immoral and wayward people. It is for those who were the moral upright who think by their good works are right before God. The religious leaders are astonished by the first act of this story, that the younger brother was brought back into the family. It just doesn’t seem fair.  Like the shocked Pharisees the elder brother is furious that the younger son is being welcomed back, even more given a feast. Wow! Here the yongner son disgraced his father by his demands for his inheritance, humiliated him publicly, then runs to him when comes back, gives him a robe to reinstate his son ship, and throws him a feast! the elder brother is infuriated by the graciousness his father is showing.  The elder brother says, “You’ve never given me a goat for a party, how dare you give him a calf?” It wasn;’ just the calf he gave the yougner brother but he gave him his inheritance back. Another blow to the elder brother. The younger son took his 1/3 inheritance now the 2/3 that was left is now being split again. The elder brother’s inheritance is being diminished again. The family wealth was already hit by a big blow, and now this. “he’s adding things up. ‘I’ve worked myself to death and earned what I’ve got, but my brother has done nothing to earn anything, indeed he’s only merited expulsion, and yet you lavish him with wealth! Where’s the justice in that?” Keller.

Because of all things piling up the brother has no desire to partake in the feast where he, “publicly casts a vote of no-confidence in his father’s actions. the father is forced to come out to speak to his older son, a deaming thing to have done to do when you are the lord of the manor and host of a great feast. He pleads with his eldest son to come in, but he continues to refuse.” Keller. As we see the elder brother has added all these things up and now pulls out his resume and reminds him of his position before his father by saying, “I’ve never disobeyed you! I have rights! I deserve a say in all this!” Keller. Some of us can say this is true. There is nothing wrong in obedience, but its the heart and the motive we see here. Look how he reponds to his father so disrespectfully, “He refuses to address him in a respectful manner inferiors owed superiors in that culture, particulary in public. he does not say, ‘esteemed father’ but simply ‘Look’ – which is the equivalent to ‘look you!’ in this culture this is outrageous.” Keller. The father’s reputation is going down the drains with his sons. i can see it now on today’s news or gossip in the church. “Who is this man that he can’t control his own sons? He’s not a respectful business person if he can’t get his own household in order. We all thought he was someone special, someone to be respected, but look at him.” this doesn’t include all the made up rumors that could be made about him once everything became public. The father has all the rights to disown both of his sons by this time. “ow will he respond to his older son’s rebellion?…he responds with tenderness, ‘My son, despite how’ve you insulted me publicly, I still want you at my feast. I am not going to disown your brother and I am not going to disown you.” Keller. The father asks his son to swallow his pride and join him. The story abrubtly ends. Did the elder son swallow his pride and choose to join in on the feast? In the next chapters Keller shows how Jesus is redefining sin and lostness because the Pharisees and people of the day have no clue what it truly is. They are stuck on the laws all that is right and all that is wrong and thats it. There is no heart, no love and no faith.

I don’t know about you, but reading this parable makes me hurt for the father. These sons care nothing about their father. All they want is his stuff and they even disrespect him and humiliate him in the process to great degrees. This convicts my actions towards God. I don’t want to do this to my heavenly Father. Father help us to be loving sons that respect, honor and love you for who you are.

Next Keller tells us what Jesus sees as sin and what being lost really looks like based on these two sons…

Ch. 2 – The Two Lost Sons – Younger Brother

“Act 1 the lost younger brother and Act 2 the lost elder brother.”

Act 1 can begin with a shocking request of the younger son. Its not a shock that he wants his inheritance because he has a rightful portion designated for him. In those days the elder brother received the majority of the inheritance but here the younger son asks for it while his father is still alive. This request tells of the younger brothers heart, because asking for his inheritance now is as good as saying I wish you were dead. This was a sign of deep disrespect. “The younger son, is essentially saying that he wants his father’s things but not his father. His relationship to the father has been a means to an end of enjoying his wealth, and now he is weary of that relationship. He wants out. Now. ‘Give me what is mine.’ he says” The father could have easily been disrespected and done whatever he decided to do with his son. he could have drove him away without a dime to his name and left him on the streets. The son was quite blount with his intentions and they all knew it. “This was an intensely patriarchal soceity, in which lavish expressions of deference and respect for elders and particulary for ones parents were of supreme importance.”  Yet the father still “divided the property between them. The word ‘property’ in the Greek used here is the word Bios, which means ‘life’” The picture Jesus is drawing here for the listeners is quite disturbing and nothing short of disrespectful. The way we would talk about such a person now is the kind of audacity this person would have to spit in his fathers face and even more where did the entitlement mentality come from?

The father obviously was wealthy. As we know what we do and have as men can often define who we are. Men are built to be care takers of their families and support them financially etc. Thats why you see so many men depressed when they are laid off. Its like taking their manhood away, their sense of purpose. Even more so, men in this patriarchal society, were defined by this. The word Bios cannot be ignored. His property was his life and he was giving it away to a brat of a son. By doing this the father was humiliating himself in front of his family and community. What is amazing about all of this, is that the father, despite what has been done gives his property “life” away because he loves his son. “Ordinarily when our love is rejected we get angry, retaliate, and do what we can do to diminish our affection for the rejecting person, so we dont hurt as much. But this father maintains his affection for his son and bears the agony.”

As we see in scripture the younger son then goes “a far way off” to live his wild living. At this point the father has counted his son as “dead.” “The rabbis taught that if you had violated the community’s standards an apology was not sufficient – you also had to make restitution.” After all his fun was made and his money spent the son left to sharing food with the pigs, then son realized his depravity without his father. The quickly thought of how those who were hired by his father had it better than he. He then devised a plan to come back and pay his father back. He would plead for forgiveness and ask to be a hired hand. he knows he doesnt even deserve that but he has made up in his mind that he will repent and pay back all he lost his father.

As the son returns and practices his petance to his father he is seen “from a long way off” and his father runs to him. “As a general rule, distinguished Middle Eastern patriarchs did not run especially owners of great estates.” But his father sprints with arms wide open and wraps his arms around his son and kisses him. The son must have been shocked. He tries to say his rehearsed speech but it is not necessary to his father because he has already forgiven him and loved him at the sight of him. This son was once dead and gone; no longer considered a son was given a robe to display his place back into the family in sonship. The son didin’t have spend years saying I’m sorry and years upon year’s paying back his father. In a moment the father said I love I forgive you my son was dead and is alive.

Lets have a feast! Feasts were for very special special ocassions especially when meat was inc=volved. “This demonstrates the lavish prodigality of God’s grace. Jesus shows the father pouncing on his son in love not only before he has a chance to clean up his life and evidence a change of heart, but even before he can recite his repentance speech. Nothing, not even abject contrition, merits the favor of God. the Father’s love and acceptance are absolutely free.” The beauty of all this is apparent. I am amazed by how far God will go to show us he loves us. There is no height or depth, length or width that is too far for his love to stretch. What you and I have done, no matter how grievece it is, God is there running toward us with open arms.

Many can think, where is the justice? That’s exactly what the elder brother thought and many of the Pharisees and religious teachers thought. God is completely just and right. his unconditional love is available to us all. The problem is we think we are better than others, or in others words our stuff don’t stink attitude. No matter our sin, it all stinks and it all required one price. This was the younger son experiencing love and grace, next is the elder sons reaction…

Why do I do the things I do? What’s my hearts motive for everything I do? After reading Timothy Keller’s “The Prodigal God” I had to ask myself these tough questions. In his book he focus’ on the parable of the Prodigal Son and its true meaning in context. So, often we read this passage and focus on the younger son who demands his inheritance from his father, lives wildly, then comes home and see a father running to him with his arms wide open. You see God’s heart of unconditional love and it really is amazing to see the heart of God in that. Because of that we miss the meaning of the parable as a whole.

What was the reason for this parable? The Pharisees said, “This man welcomes sinners and even eats with them.” This was a sign of acceptance in the Near East at that time. The Luke 15:1-3 gives us understanding on the reason why Jesus told the parable. Two groups of people were in Jesus’ audience: 1 Tax collectors and sinners and Pharisees – religious teachers of the law. The younger brother represents the sinners who do not observe the moral laws “wild living” and the Pharisees represent the elder brother who studied and obeyed scripture. “There are two brothers, each of whom represents a different way to seek acceptance into the kingdom of heaven.” T Keller. The message was for both groups but more directed to the religious and moral. This message had to sting those listening. This is not a heart-warming message. Jesus speaks directly to the Pharisees because of their response and attitude toward Jesus. “He was eating with sinners.” In the parable the father makes a feast for his prodigal son that was disobedient, yet the older brother refused to join because he was wronged due to his strict obedience to his father.

Yes, Jesus shows the unconditional love of God in this story, but the original audience was most likely offended. “The targets of this story are not ‘wayward sinners’ but religious people who do everything the Bible requires. Jesus is pleading not so much with the immoral outsider but the moral insiders. He wants to show them their blindness, narrowness, and self-righteousness and how these things are destroying their souls and the people around them.” Keller. This was a revolutionary idea for the religious leaders of the day, yet it can pierce the heart of many Christians today who find acceptance in what they do and don’t do. The gospel, in short, is God reconciling man through Jesus. But we must know he is our savior and not ourselves.

In accounting and finances it’s not always about the bottom line. You can get to the bottom line and have all the right numbers and everything works. One of the key questions in accounting is “why?” Why did I do this equation and use these numbers? You can memorize things and not have a clue why you do what you do, but its empty, because when things get messy and hard, memorizing will not get you anywhere. You must always know “why” you do what you do. In the same way, Christian living can be “I know what the rights and wrongs are and I do the right things and I stay away from the wrong things so everything is good.” Wrong! Why do you do the right things and stay away from the wrong? Your motivation cannot be self-fish. “Through this parable Jesus challenges what nearly everyone thought about God, sin, and salvation. His story reveals the destructive self-centeredness of the younger brother, but it also condemns the elder brother’s moralistic life in the strongest terms. Jesus is saying that both irreligious and the religious are spiritually lost, both life-paths are dead ends.” Keller

God hates both these conditions, but as you see in this parable and throughout Jesus’ ministry it was the religious who were dead spiritually. In our modern society we may find ourselves looking down at the younger brothers in our world and say you are not living right. The younger brothers look at the religious and blame them for the condition of the world and say the religious people hate everyone who doesn’t believe what they do. The question is not right or wrong, but do we carry the true kingdom of God in our hearts, which is the gospel. As believers, our focus cant be about how good can I be, sin less, serve more; if these things are not born out of love and carried out in faith they are just good moral things that create in us pride and security. We no longer need the cross and our good works make us feel safe; a savior is no longer needed. The elder brother was obedient in every way to his father but you can see in the parable that the motive of his obedience was to inherit what was “rightfully his” based upon his son ship, but also based on his obedience. Two paths, one motive, I want mine!

We cannot bribe or handcuff God because we are obedient. We have no right for anything outside of Jesus. He is our only true righteousness.

Can I tell you to stop striving and not be offended? Cease and listen instead on exhausting yourself on expectations that were made by someone close to you, or you may have made yourself, or you think God has placed on you. God’s will can and will be difficult, but it should not be a burden in the sense that it is draining the very life and spirit out of you. Amidst the struggle and pain God would be there pushing you on and applying the supernatural strength to keep you. God has made a specific purpose for you, because you are a specific creation. Often times making crucial decisions about your purpose in your life can be fogged for many reasons. We have to look at our motives why we choose to pursue our goals. I encourage you to dissect the reasons why you are doing things and what you are pursuing. Is it out of pride, status, position, money etc? I know for me I have to face the motive in my heart and determine what I am listening too. Is this new opportunity appealing because people will think I have it all together, it puffs up my pride because people will think I’m smart, people will think I’m more spiritual, the money will be a lot better, people rely on me, this person expects me to do more, my parents will be proud, etc. There are many things that float through our minds, but what it all should come down to is the question. Is this the path God has chosen for me? Stop. Clear your mind. There is so much clutter in this world and it enters our minds so fast with no filter. Find solitude in the presence of God. Can you hear him? Well, you might not today, but He will speak. In the meantime continue on and just be in his presence. He is God that loves you, and desires just you. We can get caught up in all our missions and to do’s, but in the quiet is where God wants us, fills us, renews us, and speaks to us.

“In love there is no room for fear, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear implies punishment, and no one who is afraid has come to perfection in love.” 1 John 4:18 “Love may drive out fear, but some of us have to take John’s challenge from the other direction first. We have to stop being afraid to make room for love. We can tell another person of our love easily enough. But if harbor fears at the back of our minds – ‘Does he really love me? How could he? If I love her, will she really return that love, or will she eventually betray me?’ – we are holding back…After all who wants to be hurt? But no one can flourish if hemmed in by doubts and fears.” B Manning. The same is found in our love for God. If we hand over our lives for him to use in trust and surrender He can do mighty things. If we hold back out of fear then we will never flourish in the hand of God. We will always cower in the face of His call – even when it’s His best for us. Where there is no risk, there is no reward. Every decision we make has ramifications. Some with great risk, some with small risks; regardless of the size there is a reward for putting one foot in front of the other.

Holy Spirit,
Enlighten me today. Bring to light the things that are in the dark. Reveal the hidden things you desire me to see. Forgive me for having expectations and burdens that were not meant for me to carry, yet I carried them out of duty and not out of love. I realize that without your grace and mercy I am lost. No matter what rules I keep, what goals I accomplish I am still in your loving hand. I know there is more to my life and in your love help to carry out your purpose in my life.

Amen

God Bless

David Pineschi

By Cassandra Friday | Campus_Chronicles {vol. 1, is. 11}

Last year, at the beginning of winter quarter, Andrew Salibo was in prayer over the plans he had for his future. “I wanted to know what God had planned for me next, in my immediate future.” This quarter, in one of Professor Ken Bluemel’s doctrine classes, Andrew received his answer. Pastor Ken mentioned the mission trip he was planning for the Philippines through his church, Skyline Christian Center. Andrew recalls that the moment Prof. Bluemel started talking about the mission trip, he knew his answer. “I want to minister to people in my own country. I want to go back there under God’s plan and not my own.” Suffice to say, Andrew will be one of the few from Epic Bible College that will be flying to the Philippines in August. This two-week trip will focus specifically on a tribal group in Zamboanga on the Island of Mindanao.

The purpose of our trip is threefold:

First, We will build a church in a remote village.

Second, We will lead a Vacation Bible School children’s outreach.

Third, We will be working among the un-reached, assisting the indigenous church in bringing others the gospel.

We will also encourage the Christians in that area. Our presence will bolster their spirits, support and strengthen their work. We will visit many Philippine Christians while being there, develop relationships and generally support them in their journey with Christ.

Pastor Bluemel, through Grace International Fellowship, heads this mission trip to the Philippines. The group will be in the Mindanao Islands from August 8 – 21, 2010. The cost is $2200 for a single person; and many, including Andrew, are still asking for donations and participating in fundraisers for the trip’s needed funds. Andrew says that they are currently asking friends, family, pastors, and churches for donations and sponsorships. Last Saturday, they held a car wash in North Highlands.

As of right now, the group flying to the Philippines in August numbers around fifteen. Also going from the college are Earl Baker, III, Choua Kong, Andrew Guthrie, Alex Williams and Leon Brown. While money is important, it comes in a distant second to the need for your prayer support. Mindanao is still considered an un-reached people group until the message of the gospel becomes self-sustaining. It is also a hostile area for Christians. Your prayer support is extremely important to the success of this mission. Let’s remember to keep these people in our prayers as they embark onthis journey and faithfully follow God’s calling.

It had been over 30 hours since I had slept–not to mention it was hot and humid-and there I sat in a church service. My team had flown “red eye” into Jamaica and most of us didn’t get any sleep on the flight. It was so hard to stay awake and pay attention because we were so sleep deprived. I do not remember much from that church service because I was so tired but what I did take away has had a major impact on my life ever since. Above every doorway leading outside a sign read, “You arenow entering the mission field.”

There I was on a mission trip to Jamaica; and, in this church, they knew and proclaimed that every day of their lives is lived on the mission field. It hit me big time and that epiphany will never leave me. It is so true. Every day of our lives we are on the mission field. It is not just when we go to another country or a rough part of the United States, but every single day of our lives.

I remember a discussion in an English class at Sierra College. It had something to do with poverty and related statistics in the U.S. It really got me thinking about the way things are here. Yes, we have so much more here than in other places in the world, but there are hurt, hungry, and dying people in our neighborhoods too. However, the most important thing to remember is that there are lost people who do not know Jesus Christ.

That discussion really started to change my mindset about missions. I began to think about home missions. That trip to Jamaica, followed by an evangelism training class at my church, and then a two-month missions trip to Vienna, Austria began to really change my thinking.

Everywhere I went and everything I did reminded me that the mission field surrounds me everyday of my life. I am a missionary. I love going to different countries and reaching out to the people in those cultures. I love learning other languages and cultures. I love helping and serving. All of those things do not have to stop once I come home, though. Jesus says, in Acts 1:8, “…you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth,” and in Matthew 28:19-20, “ Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Jesus started with Jerusalem, where they were. Then the word went out to the surrounding areas, and then to all nations, and then to the end of the earth. We should proclaim the Gospel, the Good news, and make disciples. Everyone should know of His greatlove and saving grace.

I do not want to down-play foreign missions. I am all for them. However, I wanted to share with you what I learned my first night in Jamaica. It’s something for us all to remember: live the mission field everyday!

One of my favorite scriptures is found in Ephesians. The love of God is simply unimaginable. “So that Christ may live in your hearts through faith, and then, planted in love and built on love, with all God’s holy people you will have the strength to grasp the breadth and the length, the height and the depth; so that knowing the love of Christ, which is beyond knowledge, you may be filled with the utter fullness of God.” Eph 3:17-19. I so desire this life. A life that is so overwhelmed by the love of God, so fascinated that my life is filled with the fullness of God. Yet, the more I experience the more I ponder the more I realize I cannot contain it. I’m learning love is not a fancy word to throw around lightly. The more I see how God acts out His love for us, the more I respect it. Love can often be confused for men as a weakness, something feminine, something romantic, and less macho. In my opinion love is not for the weak and faint at heart. It takes risks, it fights, it endures, it does not relent, and it is forever giving. “Love weighs and counts nothing, but expects everything.” That’s why its a risk. “no wonder so many of us choose to surrender to rules rather than living in a union of love.” B Manning. I am far from perfect, but there is a God who is. I can do nothing to meet His needs, if he had any, yet He desires to pursue me, forgive me, and heal me.

I am finding in that true love there are no limits, no borders and no walls. If we have true love, we will love God does. Our capacity is weakened in our humanity, but we are made in His image of love. When we don’t want to love it is because we are afraid and want to protect our heart. There are times to guard your heart, but so often we have taken that scripture and twisted it out of its true context. Proverbs 4:23 says, “to guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” We are not to guard our heart from that which is good, but the things that corrupt and distance us from Christ. We are not to guard our heart from real love, love that transforms us. Love makes this life worth living.

As Christians we should be overwhelmed with the love of God, that it radiates from us in the way we live and act towards others. So often we are viewed as do gooders who live by the law, who are legalistic, anti-abortion, and anti-gay. We are viewed as people with a list of rules, and who judge others who don’t live by those rules. Like you, I want that to change. “Christianity is not a primarily a moral code but a grace laden mystery; it is not essentially a philosophy of love but a love affair; it is not keeping rules with a clenched fists but receiving a gift with open hands.” B Manning. I want to be like Mary Magadelene. She was so won over by the love of Jesus that she couldn’t do anything but love Him with her whole self in return. We all need to be Christians who realize the depth of our depravity. In Luke 7:47 Jesus says, “Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.” Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” None of our sins are little. Not one person has been saved more than the other. Its all weighed the same at the cross. “The unique place that Magadalene occupies in history is not her mysterious love for Jesus but to the miraculous transformation that His love wrought in her life. She simply let herself be loved…The central truth for which Mary’s life has come to stand is that it is possible to be delivered through love from the lowest depths to the shining heights where God dwelleth.” B Manning.

Jesus,
Help me to respond to you as Mary did. Help me to see what I have been saved from and live a life in response to your love and grace. Help me to see your love and accept it with open hands. The day to day grind gets to me and I get tired, and I have trouble seeing you amidst it all, but awaken me in those times with your Holy Spirit. When I am weary fill me once again with your presence. May your love take root in my heart, Holy Spirit water, and let be so alive in me. Thank you for loving me as I am, warts and all. I desperately want to know the truth of your love. In your name. Amen.

“Let go of impoverished, circumscribed, and finite perceptions of God. The love of Christ is beyond all knowledge, beyond anything we can intellectualize or imagine. it is not a mild benevolence but a consuming fire. Jesus is so unbearably forgiving, so infinitely patient, and so unendingly loving that he provides us with resources we need to live lives of gracious response.” B Manning

1 This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD : 2 “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.” 3 So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. 4 But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.

5 Then the word of the LORD came to me: 6 “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?” declares the LORD. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. 7 If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, 8 and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. 9 And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, 10 and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it.

Do you ever feel like your life is spinning in circles and you are not getting anywhere? It feels as though the you keep going over the same things over and over again. This can be just one area of your life. There are some areas in my life where I see growth and movement. God has recently been planting vision more and more in me as of late regarding my future. Rekindling a passion I once had, but for whatever reason it was died. Then there are other areas I feel like nothing is happening. I read something the other day that when God has us going in circles He is trying to teach us something and reveal what we had forgotten. Taking us back sometimes shows us how faithful God was. Sometimes we need that. Sometimes we get so focused on whats to come, wonder how God is going to do all this, but we need to go back and reflect upon His faithfulness to us. Looking back at His faithfulness helps us to trust Him in the future. If you are in a season of seemingly nothing happening, waiting for God to about His promise and provision; hold on He is molding you.

God is the potter and I am His clay. First, check your pride. Know who you are. This can be difficult sometimes but when God is working on you it should always be humbling because we realize who we are and who He is. All we are is marred clay. Imperfect men and women. We are made in His image because he breathed life into us, other than that we are just clay from the ground. When I think of the image of God the first thing that comes to my mind is love. We are created to love, to be loved, have community, and give. If you wonder what your purpose is, know its to love everyone. Love your God with all you have, love your wife, love your kids, love your family, love your neighbors, and anyone you come in contact with. I think it was Mother Theresa who said that she gives because she sees Jesus in all of them. When you give to the least of these you give to me, Jesus speaking. This is where your call starts and ends, with faith showing itself through love.

What I love about Jeremiah 18 and 2 Cor 4:7 is that God sees us as more than we think of ourselves. He sees the reality of who we really are. Some of us think we aren’t good enough to do anything. God called the clay a vessel when it was just clay. God knows he has the power to make you whatever he calls you. “If your present condition doesn’t line up with your future position he has the ability to call things that are not as though they are.” R Speers. He knows you will yield to His purposes. When we are the clay on the potters wheel, he will spin us around, He will mold you, shape you, stretch you, pull you and apply pressure; sometimes to points you feel like you can’t bear. He is designing a specific you for a specific calling. All His vessels look different and go through different seasons to be shaped a certain way for certain time and a certain calling. All your trials and tribulations are keeping you on track for his calling. He is keeping you in line so you don’t become apathetic Christian that is not salty or hot. He is getting our attention. Whatever you are going through ask God what is it that you want to reveal to me?

He wants to fill this clay vessel with something. We all have something to put in it. Remember, that whatever God has for you, is the best for you, therefore the container must be able to handle it. All the stretching, pulling, and fire are made for you to handle God’s best.

Remember sometimes life feels like its spinning around and around? On a potter’s wheel there is a peddle the potter uses to spin the clay on the table. The potter pushes on the peddle for the table to spin fast or slow. It’s all in his hands. My issue is that me being the clay wants to control the peddle. the problem is if i get there too fast then I’ll break and fall apart, but if I go too slow i dry up and do not move forward. In every trial see God in it and search his heart otherwise you aren’t getting what you need out of the trial and he will keep doing the same thing over and over until you get it. Don’t try to move past it and move on. You think you make it thing s go faster and move on, but in reality you got nothing out of it.

We are all on the wheel. Some going faster, some slower. None of us are better than others, going faster or slower is not better than the other. While you are on the wheel and see nothing happening, trust him and praise him. It may feel like you are just waiting and nothing is happening, but God is just waiting on us to and we are waiting on his timing. “Judas was 51 days from having his name scribed in the new jerusalem. Mathias replaced Judas. What are we about to quit on?” R Speers. Stay on the wheel, don’t give up. When the clay is getting hard, the potters dip their fingers in the water and begin to rub. When we are ready to dry up God has a touch to keep us. In his presence we find refreshing to press on.

There is no failure, struggle or sin that disqualifies you. Whatever you have done or has been done to you, let God create a new you. We are new creations in Him, but we have to walk in it. Why hold on to the past? We are new pressing on toward the goal. Walk in freedom and be liberated from the chains. His grace and mercy are right here to help us move forward in newness of life.

In all of this. Our life is just a breathe. Make the best of it in God’s hands. You have a promise and don’t see the provision continue to be patient. You know the word God has put deep in your spirit, do not lose hope, keep fighting. Faith and patience are linked. Without patience we will not see our destiny or purpose come to pass. No one said this was easy, but there is a God who loves