I just have to share this. After running out to 4 different gas stations that had no gas this morning at 6:15AM, I came home and got my coffee and sat with my dejected self and opened my bible. This is what I read:
Ephesians 2
He Tore Down the Wall
1-6It wasn't so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn't know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It's a wonder God didn't lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.
7-10Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It's God's gift from start to finish! We don't play the major role. If we did, we'd probably go around bragging that we'd done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.
11-13But don't take any of this for granted. It was only yesterday that you outsiders to God's ways had no idea of any of this, didn't know the first thing about the way God works, hadn't the faintest idea of Christ. You knew nothing of that rich history of God's covenants and promises in Israel, hadn't a clue about what God was doing in the world at large. Now because of Christ—dying that death, shedding that blood—you who were once out of it altogether are in on everything.
14-15The Messiah has made things up between us so that we're now together on this, both non-Jewish outsiders and Jewish insiders. He tore down the wall we used to keep each other at a distance. He repealed the law code that had become so clogged with fine print and footnotes that it hindered more than it helped. Then he started over. Instead of continuing with two groups of people separated by centuries of animosity and suspicion, he created a new kind of human being, a fresh start for everybody.
16-18Christ brought us together through his death on the cross. The Cross got us to embrace, and that was the end of the hostility. Christ came and preached peace to you outsiders and peace to us insiders. He treated us as equals, and so made us equals. Through him we both share the same Spirit and have equal access to the Father.
19-22That's plain enough, isn't it? You're no longer wandering exiles. This kingdom of faith is now your home country. You're no longer strangers or outsiders. You belong here, with as much right to the name Christian as anyone. God is building a home. He's using us all—irrespective of how we got here—in what he is building. He used the apostles and prophets for the foundation. Now he's using you, fitting you in brick by brick, stone by stone, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone that holds all the parts together. We see it taking shape day after day—a holy temple built by God, all of us built into it, a temple in which God is quite at home.
Paul really spoke in his letter to the Ephesians on how to know Jesus better. This still holds true today. Personally, the more I dig in and learn about Jesus, the longer I am following Him and seeking Him, the more I ask Him to point me in the right directions, the more I ask Him to show me what He wants me to do next, the more I admit I need Him and can't do this alone, the more I ask for forgiveness when I mess up, each day thanking Him for the relationships in my life and the blessings He is giving me..... the more I feel Him and understand the peace in my heart that can only come from Jesus.
I am blown away by the people in my life. I am blown away by how much my heart loves "MyKids", the families I am doing life with and my Rock Group! I am blown away by the many families that the Bateman clan touches each week. I am blown away by the 12 or more kids at my house Sunday after the pumpkin patch - then their parents coming to get them and STAYING! I am amazed that they think we are nuts for operating life like this. Friends, we are not operating life like this, we are thriving in it - we are loving it! If you haven't noticed, Carol and I place a high level on community and relationships. Without God in our lives - we would be alone and missing out on all that life is giving us now. Because of Jesus - we have changed a lot over the last couple of years. We have lost some friends... but we have gained SO many more. Paul's message really spoke to me this morning.....
Looking forward to the pumpkin patch tonight...... in the community, serving others and investing in some really great families and friends while being there.... what could be better than that? I belong where God has put me. Finally!!!!!
Lonnie~
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