He chose us.

Just realizing how blessed we are who have taken part in the Lords "harvest". Loved by God, bought with the price of Jesus Christ, called to Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, now part of the Family of God. We always hear the preaching about "the harvest is great but the laborers are few" but seldom hear about the blessings of "being the one harvested." Christ, perfecting the harvest of the seed (us) by "winnowing" out the chaff of our lives and empowering us to be conformed into His image and likeness.

What an amazing blessing to be taken out of our sin by the Creator of all that exists, and just for coming out by His promise, to be "washed and cleansed" white as snow, our sins forgiven. On top of that we receive a "position" in His ranks of believers to serve Him, and then He empowers us to do the things He asks us to with the power of he Holy Spirit. Not leaving us on our own but "working through us" to do His will. When we need to pray He says "pray in the Holy Spirit. When we need strength He is our strength in weakness. When we are hungry He is our "meat" and when we thirst He is the "living waters."

He promises to "meet our needs" and to do more than we can think or ask.

All this because, from before the beginning, He loved us with an Unconditional Love, even though He knew our sin and rebellion against Him, but Love never fails, and God can not fail because God is Love. This kind of Love has been available for all men for all of time, past, present and future.

"He stands at the door and knocks" with forgiveness and position to all who will "answer the calling."

We did and we have not been disappointed but blessed.

Love

J&E in Tn

More on Unconditional Love and Life

Everything that can be done during our short time here needs doing. Sounds like a simple application but it's not. 
I think the first effort on that list is to have an intimate relationship with God through Jesus Christ so we can learn to Love Unconditionally. This is the first and most difficult item to accomplish. Why? Because it's an exercise that is "life long", a continuing growing process with endless blessings for both the giver and the receiver, this "growing" with God and in His Unconditional Love.
If we follow the First Commandment with passion:
Matthew 22:36-40
36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
Following these verses automatically means that you have an intimate relationship with God through Jesus Christ so the foundation is already built to "grow" the Unconditional Love on.
Then the Second Commandment will naturally follow which is the carrying out of Unconditional Love that you received from God to others.
Practicing this will not only make us "hearers of the Word but doers of the Word", a healthy position to be in spiritually and physically. We then can "Love as Jesus Loves" thereby fulfilling all Scripture and bringing "glory to our Father in Heaven."
God can use believers like that to bring His Kingdom "on earth as it is in Heaven."
This being in place and growing daily will help doing the rest of the "need to do" list of life go smoother and more efficiently.
God bless and keep.
Love
J&E in Tn

Being "One with God"

Your Christian experience will only be as miraculous as your faith is to walk in the Spirit (Holy Spirit)! Faith in Jesus Christ was never meant to be a ritual of liturgical motions, but a becoming of One with Jesus Christ and our Father in Heaven. We have been given the best example of a perfect Father, and the best example of a Brother in Jesus Christ. in fact it was so important that Jesus prayed the Father about that "oneness."

John 17: 20-23

20 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; 21 that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. 22 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: 23 I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.

"And the glory thou has given me I have given them", "that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that thou hast sent me". The world knows the truth by witnessing that we are one with Jesus and with our Father because we share the Fathers glory through Jesus Christ the same way He did. "The Truth shall (not maybe, but shall,) set you free!"

So this begs the question to be asked: "are you free today?"

Is your "Oneness" with God making you free more and more each new day?

Does the reward of being One with God cause your "faith" to grow" in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ daily?

Is your "Christian" experience ALIVE like it's portrayed in Scripture to be?

Do you uses up all your grace fighting your own demons instead of putting them to rest in the finished work of Jesus Christ, His death and resurrection?

Is there an abundance enough of grace to make a joyful noise unto the Lord of the earth, regardless of whether you are "happy, glad, sad or mad"?

Being one with God, and Jesus comes with the blessing of being in His presence which should bring "joy unspeakable and full of glory". How can that cause any other reaction then throwing ones hands up into the air and singing the Hallelujah course from the heart?

If your Christian experience is not somehow acclimating to a higher form every day then you need to pray about becoming deeper in oneness with Jesus and the Father.

I have found that "let God be True and every man a liar" to be just so, and those that esteem His Word as Truth will be set free to a greater degree as their "walk" with Him deepens. If we select areas in His Word to deem "unnecessary" or "false" because the "times have changed", then we will miss the "hand of God" in our lives to it's fullest application because of lack of faith. How do we get faith? "Now faith comes by hearing and that by hearing the Word of God." To "hear God's Word" is to is to "obey God's Word!" There are only two choices: obey, or disobey! If you are not doing the first one (obeying) then you are automatically doing the second one.

Remember that God never maid His Word an option in anyone's life. It's the same for both the Jew and the Gentile. We all know that the word Gentile covers everyone else on the planet outside the Jewish race. Regardless of religious faction, race, creed, color, ect.

Resurrection Celebration Day is a good time to "reconfigure" our "Walking in the Spirit" application of Christianity to bring us deeper in our "oneness" with God our Father through the Lord Jesus Christ.

God bless and sanctify through Jesus Christ.

Love

J&E in Tn

A quick look at the "lack of motivation" in the faith.

It is of the utmost importance for everyone who calls themselves "a believer in Jesus Christ" to search out their "calling and elections" and make sure their administration. For all that are called of Christ will be used of the Holy Spirit for the glory of God. To fail in this "searching out" brings about the lack of "motivation", and "manifestation" of the reality of Christianity in our lives, first to ourselves then to others as proof that God is real.

God's plan from the beginning was to "reveal" Himself to all mankind through Jesus Christ working through His believers. When we know what His Word says and "not just hear the Word but be doers the Word" then God promises us that He will "manifest His glory in all the earth". We have the only faith that carries these powerful and precious promises:

1. That God will bare witness to His Word of Truth.

2. That He will use His people to do it.

This is why He gave us His Holy Spirit (to give gifts severally according to His will), and the name above all names Jesus Christ (wherein at it's mention "every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord").

Many believers grow "weary" of well doing because they are not taught that Christianity is a living experience and not just a blind, mundane following of rules and practices that cannot encourage them. We serve a Living and True God who delights in using His believers to "deliver" the oppressed, needy, and hurting of this world. He proves His Unconditional Love for us by doing this and gives hope to the hopeless by proving to them their value in that He cares enough for them that He will Divinely intervene in their lives.

His promises are sure in Christ Jesus our Lord.

If every believer would lay hold of the faith being not just a hearer of the Word but a doer of the Word, seeking out their administrations and gifts of the Holy Spirit, our faith would turn this world upside down once again. We all would experience Love, Joy and Peace in the Holy Spirit because we would see God's divine manifestations in our own lives, being encouraged by this, and thereby "a witness" to others.

The Christian faith is to be lived, experienced, and grown in daily so that both the believer, and those who witness their lives, will all seek a place in God's Kingdom as He designed it.

May the Holy Spirit encourage your hearts in the Truth that sets free and empowers.

God bless and keep in Jesus name.

Love

J&E inTn

A short thought on James 4:14

James 4:14

14 Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.

Many people only see the warning about the "shortness of life" in this verse, and if in context it's about the pride of success and gain from planning. A kind of boasting, but this is not all that can be taken from this scripture.

I always viewed it as a promise that "like a vapour" that appears for a little time our lives have an affect on people just, as a vapour lets some of it's elements or residue on the objects it passes. Depending on "what our vapour consists of" it could be the cooling, refreshing effect, or it could be the rampaging, damaging effect.

For the one who's vapour/life comes from a very real, living, relationship with God through Jesus Christ what's left behind will be love, joy and peace in the Holy Spirit.

From the one who's vapour/life comes from sin, malice, and wickedness what's left behind is hurt, pain, and worthlessness.

That's how you will be remembered, "by your mist."

Being that the scripture also states that "our vapour appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away" places the importance for our lives to have the most uplifting and encouraging effect on as many others as possible because "a little time" isn't very long in relationship to eternity.

"Work while it is day for the night cometh when no man worketh."

Your life will be filled with innumerable acquaintance so redeem the time as the days are evil.

Choose to be "love, joy and peace in the Holy Spirit.

Love

J&E inTn