Jesus

By Donna McCrary –

If Jesus had a Facebook page or Twitter account would you be His friend or follow His tweets?

Absolutely!

Can you imagine Jesus “tweeting”?

• Just healed another one.
• Going for a walk across the lake this evening.
• HMMMM feels like rain.
• Hungry – Got fish?
• I saw that….yes, I am talking to you!

With today’s modern technology it is nothing to accumulate over 500 “friends” via Facebook. It takes two seconds to click the “like” icon on someone’s post. It takes a few more minutes to type a comment. Two clicks and you have sent a happy face to a “friend” who is struggling. We might be “connected” to a lot of “friends” yet these relationships are emotionally void. In other words, we know the status of a lot of “friends” but we are a far cry from BFF’s.

I read this quote by Dr. Greg Fizzel, “No one’s relationship with Christ will ever rise above the level of his or her praying. Put simply, if your prayer life is inconsistent and weak, so will be your relationship with God.” It made me question my own prayer life. Is my relationship with Jesus any stronger than my relationships with my Facebook friends? Am I a fan who just follows His tweets? Do I really spend T-I-M-E with Him?

What I discovered is that I often treat my prayer life with God like my Facebook status. I login and update how I feel periodically from time to time throughout my week. I express my feelings, desires, frustrations, funny experiences, and then log out. I don’t log back in until I have a few extra minutes in my busy day or maybe a struggle that needs posting for some prayer.

I don’t want to be just a person who read the tweets and smiles. I want to be a friend that experiences an intimate relationship with an Amazing-All-Knowing-All-Powerful-God.

Being a friend to Jesus starts with a devoted prayer life where we read His word, give thanks, ask for help, pray for others, and simply enjoy His presence. This type of prayer life requires commitment and time.

What about you do you need to log in and update your prayer status?

“Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1Thessalonians 5:16-18 NIV).

The Workout High

by Elaine James –

I wanted to try something different and have some fun, so I went to a Zumba class at my gym. It was so stinking hard. I couldn’t keep up with the instructor. My feet went one way while my hips went the other. My dancing looked nothing like my the moves my instructor demonstrated.

“With time, the dance will become more familiar and things will get easier.” She said, encouraging me to keep coming. Things were going well until she changed the routine. Ugh!

I continue to drag myself to some kind of exercise class or to use the machines. My crotchety body still gets sore. But you know the old cliché “No pain, no gain.” I have to admit a membership to a club, cute proper workout clothes and protein power bar (need that boost) help make the experience a little better. Still, it is not always something I look forward to.

If I get in a rut and slack off. I remind myself of the reasons why I workout; I feel better, it is good for my health, helps keep my weight down and gets those endorphins going in my brain. I feel that work-out high or “Runners high”.

But I still needed more motivation. That is when I came up with the idea to get a personal trainer. It was her job to help motivate, challenge, support me and give me fresh perspective. But it became too expensive, and as soon as I stopped training, my motivation dropped again.

Lasting motivation and zeal for life needs to come from my true personal trainer, Jesus Christ. I decided to give myself permission to have a McDonalds drive through mentality. I want things fast so I can go, go, go. So, for motivation, I pick a verse and go. I know I will benefit from it. Here is the first one I selected: “So that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power” (1 Corinthians 2:5 NIV).

Man’s wisdom for exercise is excellent today because of technology. You can get an eating and exercise app on your phone. Greater than all of that knowledge and resources man gives us is reassurance from God.

Where does your faith rest? You can’t rely on the workout high. This simple reminder helps me pray for faith so the power of God will rest on me to get through the day.

PRAYER: Father in heaven, forgive me for leaving You home and not taking You with me at times. Thanks for Your word that gives me a power boost for the day.

Hatorade

by Elaine James –

I overheard my daughter asking her angry friend “did you, like, drink some Hatorade today?” One of her friends had made a hateful comment toward another friend. My daughter took up for her, which is why she asked the Hatorade question. I heard her say ‘Hatorade’ and thought “What a funny question and word.” This is precisely the way slang words are created today.

Gatorade was invented with the idea that it is a high performance drink that absorbs quickly into your body to give you energy to activate your muscles. If there was a drink called Hatorade, I would imagine that after drinking some, it would absorb quickly into your soul and then cause you to spew hate out your mouth. Spewing words is an age old problem. Speaking without thinking will always get you into trouble.

Controlling the tongue is a difficult thing to do. You wouldn’t have got snappy with your husband if he did not get snappy with you. You are hurting so you want to hurt someone back. It is easy to be nice when life is going well.

Perhaps you feel like Paul when he said “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate I do.”

A binding exchange of promises with God should help us to watch what we say. That is the conviction of the Holy Spirit.

I don’t think we will see a drink called Hatorade at the grocery store anytime soon. It wouldn’t surprise me to see it in a Hollywood movie someday.

Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!

PRAYER: Father in heaven I have trouble at times doing good. I ask you to give me the strength to say and do the right things. Thanks for listening. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.

“People with understanding control their anger; a hot temper shows great foolishness” (Proverbs 14:29 NLT).

Living Squinty-Eyed

By Cheri Cowell –

Sunglasses in Florida are just a part of life, but that part of life gets more complicated when you wear prescription glasses. This past Saturday, I knew we were going to be out in the sun all day and decided to wear my contacts, keeping my sunglasses on a string around my neck. This was a much easier method swapping between my regular glasses prescription sunglasses. The only real downside to this decision is I can’t really see with my contacts. Oh, I can see to walk, but don’t ask me to read anything. I end up squinting, a lot, when I need to read.

Jesus actually talked about living a squinty-eyed life versus a life lived with wide-eyed wonder.

This passage in Matthew approaches the idea of light and eyes from two different angles. One being the eye as the window through which light enters, and the other as the lens through which man visions the world. Jesus uses both interpretations to teach the lesson that seeing the way God sees is the only way to see truthfully. If you and I want to live a life full of light, we must do so without squinty-eyed greed and distrust.

PRAYER: God, I Praise You for helping me see things with more of a God’s eye view. Help me to live more wide-eyed and less squinty-eyed so I might be filled to overflowing with wide-eyed wonder.

“Your eyes are windows into your body. If you open your eyes wide in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light. If you live squinty-eyed in greed and distrust, your body is a dank cellar. If you pull the blinds on your windows, what a dark life you will have!” (Matthew 6:22-23 MSG).

Sky Mall and the Things We Buy

By Peter Lundell –

On a recent flight I browsed the Sky Mall catalog, which exists to showcase things every satisfied person ought to have. My favorites:

A showerhead that lights up with different colors, which “can feel as enjoyable and relaxing as being in a spa.” Oh, really?

A toilet seat with a sensor that automatically raises and lowers the seat and lid, because “some men have a hard time remembering to put the toilet seat down after use.” Humph. Men.

The world’s largest CD storage towers that can hold my “2,262 CDs” or “936 DVDs.” But there are only 365 days in a year.                                                                                                                            

A cherry wood luxury showcase for my “24 watches. Over 4 million sold world-wide.” Guess I should have one too—after I buy another 23 watches.

A portable staircase to help my older dog get onto its favorite bed or sofa. (So I don’t have to lift my pet.) Lucky me.

Then there are the skeleton gnomes (midget skeletons with red caps), along with statuary of zombies, and replicas of King Tut’s Egyptian Throne and the Peeing Boy of Brussels. How inspiring.

Oh, how happy I would be if I owned all these things. How happy many people seem to think they will be.

By design, our consumer culture keeps adults thinking and buying like insatiable children.

Then Jesus comes along and tells us to give things up, even our lives. Who would want to follow Him? Seriously, Jesus is not attractive to materialists—which is one reason so many reconfigure Jesus as a palatable religious icon in their own image.

Yet the human heart—whatever it believes—still yearns for something deeper and more enduring. No one can adequately fill the vacuum inside it except the God who put it there in the first place.

So, how filled is your vacuum?

PRAYER: Lord, keep my heart on Your Kingdom, my eyes on the unseen, my mind on the eternal. And let me not be seduced by the allure of possessions.

“If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me” (Matthew 19:21 NIV).

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