Stand in Awe of God!!!!!!!

In Ecclesiastes 5:1-7 Solomon has been watching worshippers come and go, praising God, praying, sacrificing, and making vows. Solomon sees that many of them where not sincere in there worship, and they leave the temple worse then when they entered. What was their sin? They were robbing God of who he is. There worship became hypercritical. Offerings in the hands without obedient faith in the heart become "the sacrifice of fools," only a fool thinks he can deceive God. The fool thinks he is doing good but he or she is only doing evil. And God knows it. Solomon then brings up the topic of careless praying (vv. 2-3). If we had an opportunity to bring our needs or request to those in authority we would approach the situation with careful choosing of words and exhibit proper behavior. How much more then should we as we approach our father in heaven?? The last two things Solomon notices is making a vow to God with no intention of keeping it,(lying) the second was making a vow but delaying to keep it, hoping you could get out of it. When we rob the Lord of the worship and honor due to Him, we are also robbing ourselves of the spiritual blessings on those who worship him in spirit and in truth. To me it seems like the people in this passage were more concerned about presenting an image of holiness instead of being amazed and really wanting to grow closer in their relationship with God. I think we can get so consumed with life that we forget to stand silently in awe of God. My challenge is today stand in awe of God and give him the reverence that he deserves!!!!!!!!

Selfless Love

For the last couple of months I have been reflecting over 1 John 4:7-21. A very famous passage of scripture. As I take time and reflect over this passage. I can't get over Jesus selfless act of love towards us. It's something of a paradox that he has to die so we may have life. Lately I have been so amazed that God loves us regardless of how we treat him. I have been so amazed that I have actually been challenged by it and today I want to challenge you. My challenge to you is to be selfless!!!!!! That regardless of how people treat you, can you show the love of Christ to them. I have been challenged by this question. Is it possible to love people and expect nothing in return? To genuinely care about somebody even if they never say thank you or reciprocate that love. Sometimes I think we treat love like a math problem. I shouldn't say we maybe I do this. Where we say in our head I've done this and that for you and what's in it for me! when are you going to do something for me! I know I have felt like that at times, where because we did this we expect the same feelings or care or love in return. Does your stance of love and care change because of how the other person treats you? Is it possible to say, "regardless of how you treat me it doesn't change the fact that I love and I need to reflect Christ love to you. I have to be honest I have been trying to do this in my own life for months now and it has been one of the hardest things I have ever done. My challenge is more of a dare, I dare you to find ways where you can put your pride and your agenda aside in order to show selfless love to somebody.

Sunscreen

I heard this on a road trip home from North Carolina a couple of weeks ago, and every now and then I play it. I thought it had some compelling things to say. Let me know what you think. The lyrics are taken from a famous essay written in 1997 by Mary Schmich, a columnist with the Chicago Tribune. Copy and paste the link in the url.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTJ7AzBIJoI

Proverbs 12:1

Today I read Proverbs 12:1 where it says "Whoever loves discipline loves Knowledge, but he who hates correction is stupid." At first glance I was a little confused, it sounds to be counter cultural. I mean how many people liked to be disciplined? I don't know that many people that like to hear what they are doing is wrong or like to be corrected. Sometimes being corrected can be a humiliating process. I remember one time when I was a teenager in the country of Ecuador when my pastor told me not to jump over the fire pit (to my teenagers don't try it!!!!) . I must not have been paying attention or I didn't hear him correctly because I kept on doing it. Which caused other teenagers to follow in my footsteps. So the result of my disobedience was my senior pastor scolding me in-front of everybody, man was I embarrassed and humiliated. I think this is a hard principle to grasp, those who wish to improve themselves must learn to accept correction. As Christians we are striving everyday to be more like Christ. The Bible says to be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. How willing are we to learn from our mistakes? Do we respond well when somebody tries to correct us or is our immediate reaction to be defensive and lash back at them? Are we willing enough to put our pride aside and say your right I do need to work on these areas. The one who is unwilling to except correction must think they know everything or is just to ignorant to care. So the theme of this post is how willing are you to accept correction? Please feel free to post your comments and thoughts.