In the 19th century, a Roman Catholic priest, father Damien was sent to minister to the lepers who had been quarantined on the island of Molokai in the Hawaiian chain. He was  sent to serve these scorned and sickly people; these untouchables. But even though he tried for years to reach out to them with the love of Jesus Christ, as best he knew how, he never quite succeeded in connecting with these people in a way that led them to respond to his ministry.  So, finally, he decided to give up.  He sent word to the people on Oahu to send a boat for him and also to find someone else to take his place.
 
But on the Sunday he was scheduled to leave, as he stood there on the dock waiting for the boat to arrive, he happened to glance down at his hands and noticed several white spots.  And in that moment, he suddenly realized that he, himself, had become a leper.  This meant, of course, that he wouldn’t be able to take that boat back to Oahu, for now he also belonged in the leper colony.  However, this isn’t the end of the story of Father Damien.
 
You see, when he left that dock, and slowly walked back up the hill to the little church he had tried so hard to serve, he suddenly discovered a church full of people.  Somehow the word had spread, and they had finally come to hear their priest. That’s because he was no longer an outsider.  He had become one of them.
 
(And so he stayed on at that leper colony for the rest of his life, touching thousands with the love of Jesus Christ…)

This is so much like the story of the Gospel - God became one of us through the person of Jesus Christ so that we could experience oneness with God.
 

Have a Great Day!

If you yourself do not cut the lines that tie you to the dock, God will have to use a storm to sever them and to send you out to sea.

Put everything in your life afloat upon God, going out to sea on the great swelling tide of His purpose, and your eyes will be opened.

If you believe in Jesus, you are not to spend all your time in the calm waters just inside the harbor, full of joy, but always tied to the dock.

You have to get out past the harbor into the great depths of God, and begin to know things for yourself— begin to have spiritual discernment. Oswald Chambers

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A group of graduates, well established in their careers, were talking at a reunion and decided to go visit their old university professor, now retired.  During their visit, the conversation turned to complaints about stress in their work and lives.  Offering his guests hot chocolate, the professor went into the kitchen and returned with a large pot of hot chocolate and an assortment of cups - porcelain, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite - telling them to help themselves to the hot chocolate.

When they all had a cup of hot chocolate in hand, the professor said: “Notice that all the nice looking, expensive cups were taken, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones.  While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. The cup that you’re drinking from adds nothing to the quality of the hot chocolate.  In most cases it is just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink. What all of you really wanted was hot chocolate, not the cup; but you consciously went for the best cups… And then you began eyeing each other’s cups.

Now consider this: Life is the hot chocolate; your job, money and position in society are the cups.  They are just tools to hold and contain life.  The cup you have does not define, nor change the quality of life  you have.  Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the hot chocolate God has provided us.  God makes the hot chocolate, man chooses the cups. The happiest people don’t have the best of everything.  They just make the best of everything that they have.  Live simply.  Love generously.  Care deeply. Speak kindly. And enjoy your hot chocolate.

But godliness with contentment is great gain.
 1 Timothy 6:6

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I live in Westbank BC in the beautiful Okanagan valley. We get hot dry summers which I love however because we are surrounded by mountains with trees we tend to be prone to fires.

Last week there were 3 fires that all started within 24 hours of each other and all within a 10 minute drive of where I live.

There were over 10,000 people evacuated with as many on evacuation alert. Luckily there was minimal damage and no serious injuries.

Tonight I was sitting on my deck enjoying the setting sun watching the fire fighting helicopters flying overhead. The helicopters had a long cable attached to it with a large bucket on the end of the cable.

The helicopters fly to the lake and dip the bucket in to fill it and then fly back to the fire and dump it.

I was thinking to myself … what if they filled the bucket with gas and then dumped it on the fire? Ridiculous you say?

Yes it does seem ridiculous and yet when I thought about how many of us live our lives we often tend to do just that.

We all have “fires” of fear, insecurities, offences, doubts, false core beliefs, habits and addictions and yet without thinking we throw gas on those fires and fuel them instead of putting them out with water.

When we stew in our fear or anger or depression we are fueling our fire.

When we keep telling ourselves  “I cant do it”, “I’m not as talented as so and so”, “If only I were prettier, smarter, richer”. “I’ll be happy when…” we are feeding the fire.

When we keep allowing ourselves to react in the same way over and over again while we dislike our actions we are pouring on gasoline.

Because we were created with free will, we always have a choice in what we think, how we act or react.

Make a conscious effort to begin pouring the water of truth, confidence, grace, kindness, love and respect on your fires.

Not only will you find the fires will stop but you will then begin to see fresh beautiful growth replacing where the fires once raged.

 
Ephesians chapter 1. tells us that God  has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ:

He has blessed us “in Christ”
He has chosen us “in Him”
Having predestined us “by Jesus Christ”
Has made us accepted “in he beloved”.
Having made known to us the mystery of his will.
Having obtained an inheritance…
We were sealed with the Holy Spirit

All of these things were done for us before the foundation of the world and hidden in Jesus Christ - the only one who qualified to be our representative – (The sinless god-man).

God poured all these blessings on the Son, and they were held in Him. The miracle happens when we open our hearts to Christ and He comes into our lives and bring with him every blessing connected to the divine nature of God.

Our lives are transformed into the image of God when the  divine nature of God is drawn out through our lives from within as we hear and obey His living Word.

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Many years ago George Wilson, a postal clerk, robbed a federal payroll from a train and in the process killed a guard. The court convicted him and sentenced him to death by hanging. Because of a public outcry against capital punishment, however, a movement began to secure a presidential pardon for Wilson (seeing how this was his first offense), and eventually the President himself intervened with a pardon.
 
   Amazingly, Wilson refused it.

   Since this had never happened before, the Supreme Court was asked to rule on whether someone could indeed refuse a presidential pardon. Chief Justice John Marshall handed down the court’s decision: “A pardon is a written decree whose only value must be determined by the receiver of the pardon. It has no value apart from that which the receiver gives to it. George Wilson has refused to accept the pardon. We cannot conceive why he would do so, but he has. Therefore, George Wilson must die.”

And so, as punishment for his crime, George Wilson, on a day appointed by the court, was taken from his cell and hanged to satistfy the requirements of the law. Pardon, declared the Supreme Court, must not only be granted, it must be accepted.

 We have forgiveness of sins according to the riches of God’s GRACE, but for us to enjoy this WE MUST ACCEPT IT!

Have a Great Day!

Man’s power of choice enables him to think like an angel or a devil, a king or a slave.
Whatever he chooses, mind will create and manifest.
Frederick Bailes

Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it [are] the issues of life. Proverbs 4:23

Blessings

I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you,
the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints,
Ephesians 1;18

The eyes of the heart are different than the eyes of the head. The eyes of your head are linear and rational seeing only what is right in front of us. The eyes of the heart take in so much more, they perceive depth, context, nuances, the whisperings and the promptings of the Spirit of God. Looking through the eyes of the heart is a whole other way to live life.

When our spirit and heart become saturated with the precepts of God and His presence the eyes of our heart enlighten. We begin to see things that were before hidden. To be fully alive in any given moment we need to see with an enlightened heart.

Have a Great Day.

Recently I asked a friend how he became so successful in his business. 

He replied “you make a lot of mistakes and you learn from them”.
It is true that we are made strong by the difficulties we face, not by those we evade.

In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
Romans 8:37

Have a Great Day!

We get one story, you and I, and one story alone.

God has established the elements, the setting, and the climax and the resolution.
It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn’t it?

Donald Miller
Whether you turn to the right or to the left, yours ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”
Isaiah 30:21

Have a Great Day!