No regrets

My father passed on to glory this week. For the first 25 years of my life I was daddy's girl. My dad could do no wrong. Then he decided to leave my mom for another woman. My world was shattered. Over the next 25 years, there were times that I thought I wanted him to suffer for what he did, but when the time came that he actually was suffering, it didn't feel good at all. It took me many years to get over what he did, but eventually I made peace with him.

I shared the Good News of Jesus Christ's death and resurrection with him several times over the years. On one last occasion, before his dementia had really taken over, he told me he had accepted Christ. It's hard to describe the peace I had when I received the news that he was gone. Relief, yes, that the suffering was over; but joy too! Not only that he passed from this life to the next, but that God had mercifully changed my heart so that I could not only forgive him, but I could also share God's plan for his salvation with him!

Think of someone you know. If they died today, would you have any regrets?

Why don't we communicate Christ?

The title of this post was the question my husband posed to the evangelism class that meets on Wednesday nights. If it truly is a command to "Go make disciples" (Matthew 28), then why aren't we doing it? The class came up with the following possible reasons:

1. We don't see the seriousness of the command. (That it is a sin if we don't obey it.)
2. We are not living like a Christ-follower ourselves, so we're ashamed to tell others they need to.
3. We don't believe in hell. If we did, wouldn't we want to tell people we know the way to avoid eternal damnation?
4. The enemy (Satan) keeps us off balance and distracted with our own problems.

So how do we begin? First we pray. Prayer helps to develop our confidence. We move from earthly possibility to the supernatural. We ask God to help us connect with the people He has put in our lives. We ask Him to help us to live real, godly lives in front of the people we come into contact with. I think that's a good start.

Read this quote by Charles H. Spurgeon:

“If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our dead bodies. And if they perish, let them perish with our arms wrapped about their knees, imploring them to stay. If Hell must be filled, let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go unwarned and unprayed for.”

Image

God said:

"Let us make man in our image, in our likeness..." (From Genesis 1:26)

I'm working on a 1,000 piece puzzle this winter. I haven't done a puzzle in a while and now I remember why. It's a lot of work to get 1,000 pieces in the right places!

If you've ever done a puzzle, you know that the artist expects you to follow the picture on the front of the box and complete the puzzle so it is the exact representation of that image, right? I believe that God intends for us to become the exact representation of His image, His likeness. How? He sent His own Son, Jesus Christ, to be born, and to live on this earth to show us how. He modeled life for us. He modeled holiness for us. And He modeled love and sacrificial death for us.

I'm reading a very helpful (not perfect) parenting book called Parenting with Love and Logic. One of the main points that keep recurring in the book is the idea that we parents must model the behavior that we expect in our children. Christ did this for us. And while I was certainly an imperfect model to my son, I have a perfect model to follow (and point my son to) in Jesus Christ. If I follow Him, the pieces will fit together perfectly.