What Makes Your World Go ROUND?

Over the last week and a half, or so, a lot has been going on in my mind; so for the next few weeks I will be attempting to share my heart with you guys.

Recently I’ve been hearing this idea that we should live "Christ centered" lives and that the key to everything is having Christ be the center of what you do. I also have been reading many books about how to live Christ centered lives and such, so I began to think. Why? What is this whole meaning behind Christ centered lives? You're probably like "that’s a stupid question," but seriously I couldn't find a specific Bible verse where Christ said "make me your center" (though I did see Christ say to follow him and leave everything else aside, and he will take care of you). Nevertheless, I began to contemplate what this is all about.

Lately, I have had many close friends who are ministers or “strong” Christians completely hitting a concrete wall and throwing everything away. They are all real strong in the ministry and love Christ, but all of a sudden, a certain occurrence happens and everything seems to shatter. I don’t get it though. Is that really what Christianity is about; to serve God in the good and not in the bad?

I got to thinking; maybe these people are really on to something with this Christ centeredness. Maybe Christ was hoping we would understand this hidden truth without him spoon feeding us. As I was laying in bed, frustrated with all the nonsense going on, I looked out the window and saw the sun. I started to think. Why does the earth spin or rotate? What is causing the earth to constantly be in motion? What is it that allows the earth to actually stay in place rather than just randomly go through the universe? I started to look it up (yes, I understand it is a bit on the nerdy side). I began to see the reason the earth is spinning is because of the gravitational pull from the sun and its desire to stay in orbit around it. It's kind of as if the reason the earth is actually still in place is solely because of this pull coming from the sun. I then started to look up what would happen if the earth decided to orbit itself. What would happen is that the earth would actually no longer be able to contain life. It would be too far from its source. If the earth one day decided to say that "I’ve been with the sun for enough time and I understand what it can do, but it's time for me to take some time away and do this on my own," every bit of life that existed on earth would fade away. The ability to possess life will also be taken away. Sounds dumb, huh?

Think about what we do so often. We acknowledge that the Father is there, but we decide that we can continue to acknowledge him and do some stuff on our own. We lose focus of what should be our driving force. Rather than having Christ as our center, whom we should revolve around, we decide to let money, power, acceptance, pride, relationships, education, and ministry (yes, I said ministry) be the driving force of our lives. We begin to allow these various things become what “makes our world go round.” What we fail to realize is that there is only so long we can let our lives revolve around these different areas because sooner or later, life will cease to exist. We forget that we actually can’t survive on our own, and sometimes, it is until we get to this point of extreme desolation that we realize we cannot survive without the Son.

OnEaMoNgMaNy

What's it Worth?

2Co 13:9 For we are glad when we are weak and you are strong. Your restoration is what we pray for.

2Co 13:11 Finally, brothers, rejoice. Aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.

The KJV says we pray for your perfection, but what pops out to me is the word restoration. If you look throughout the old testament the word restore is used on multiple occasions. Promising of nations, lives, families all being restored. So i began to think why did Paul aim for this perfection or being brought back to a place of complete restoration? Why did he say your restoration is what we pray for?

Imagine this you just move into a house, the people that owned it before you left some of their furniture in the house and said to just keep it. Upon looking at it you question whether you should even keep it because it looks so worn out and eh. But you decided to see what you can do with it. You then go through the restoration process and at the end of this process this piece of furniture is one of the most beautiful things you have ever seen. Turns out its actually an antique from the 1900's. Not only is it beautiful it is worth a lot of money. In fact it is now valued more than it ever has been. So think about this, when this piece of furniture was first bought I'm sure it was of much worth and it looked beautiful but as time progressed it began to collect dirt and it lost its shine, it lost its luster. So now over a hundred years later you come and you decide to give this ugly piece of furniture a chance to be something so you take it through this very strenuous restoration process with no promise of a positive outcome but just a hope. In the end what ends up happening is after the restoration process this piece of furniture is actually worth more than it was worth when it was first made. Its brought to a place of new riches the value of it cant quite be explained because it is worth so much.

Now i go back to what Paul was saying, "Your restoration is what we pray for" i think he is saying, "hey all you guys who have messed up and all this dirt added up and you feel so worthless God is wanting to restore you." BUT get this when God restores you he doesn't just bring you back to the place you were. He restores you and your value, for a lack of better terms, to greater than it was before. You've been restored to a point of complete renewal and because of all the ware and tear you've been through you can now do so much more because you know so much more. I think we as people just need to see that God has promised to Restore to us what we once had. If we can stand firm on his promise the things we can accomplish are ridiculous. Now if we continually let ourselves believe the lie of the devil that we aren't worth anything or we aren't good enough we ill just keep collecting dirt rusting and we just let it go like this the rest of our lives. I think its time to believe in his promise and receive restoration in our lives. Until you are restored you can not live up to all you were created to do.

OnEaMoNgMaNy

I Am?

John 8:58-⁵⁸"I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I am!"

You are. I am. What does that mean? Does it mean He is the good and not the bad? Does it mean He is the answered prayer but not the unanswered prayer? HE is? We as a society, I feel, have a misconception of the statement Jesus makes when he says, "I am." When He said that it was all inclusive. "He is" the answered prayer and "is" the same when the prayer is not answered. "He is" healing for the sick but yet he "is" still when one is not healed. He is.

We are so quick to make the statement that if "its" not happy go lucky "its" not God. Is that to say if it is true, and God is not merely happy go lucky would you not believe? Is his blessing everything you believe in? Because if its eeek...we may just have an issue. Because when my God said, "I am," he was acknowledging that he is not the one that says your life will always be swell with no problems. See we have made God some sort of genie but instead of 3 wishes we expect endless wishes. We think, "If i sing some songs, go to church my life will be A okay, and God will then owe it to me to bless me." Our thinking couldn't be any more twisted. Until we can understand that "He Is." i don't think we will ever quite grasp the trueness of the Father.

Think of this when you go on a cruise it will say that it is an all inclusive trip or cruise. The cruise never promised that the weather would be bright and beautiful the whole time. You go on fully understanding that storms actually may come up, but since you are aboard the cruise ship you tell your self it is still worth going because you can still be under that protection of the ship. You can still be sheltered in the Storm. Jesus never promised that life is all happy and beautiful but He says, "I am" with hopes of us understanding even though there may be a storm he is forever sovereign and we must just trust in his never failing love.

OnEaMoNgMaNy