The more sinful and guilty a person tends to feel, the less chance there is that he will be a happy, healthy, or law-abiding citizen. He will become a compulsive wrong-doer — Dr. Albert Ellis

Forgiveness is the key that unlocks the door of resentment and the handcuffs of hate. It is a power that breaks the chains of bitterness and the shackles of selfishness — William Arthur Ward

Sometimes I’m a bit a dense.  I think that’s why I love that God tells me the same thing so many different ways in His Word.  I need to keep hearing these things over and over and over again so that I’ll take them from my mind to my heart and live out what He commands.

I sure am glad God is patient.

PROGRESS:  Living for today, planning for tomorrow

Day 11 of 28 (start at day 1 by clicking HERE)

The Joseph Mindset:  Day 4

I hope your not tired of the story of Joseph yet, because I can’t get enough of it right now!  As we continue to surrender our pain to God to let Him do what only He can do with it, let’s take one more look at Joseph during the 13 years of his slavery/prison term.

PROGRESS:  Living for today, planning for tomorrow

Day 8 of 28 (start at day 1 by clicking HERE)

The Joseph Mindset:  Day 1

In The House of Seven Gables Nathaniel Hawthorne writes these words:  “The past lies upon the present like a giant’s dead body.”

Many of us can relate to the feeling that our past is hovering above us, crashing down around us, lurking in the dark shadows waiting to pounce us, or just attaching itself to our legs and dragging us down each and every day.  Mignon McLaughlin — in The Neurotic’s Notebook — said it like this:  “The past is strapped to our backs.  We do not have to see it; we can always feel it.”  Indeed, we do always feel the past and naturally, it has an incredibly profound impact on how we live in the present and what we’ll do for God in the future.  As we continue in this 28 day journey of becoming the people God wants us to be, dealing with our past is an important subject.

Sometimes the Bible is hard to understand.  Even the Apostle Peter made note that when Paul spoke Peter sometimes had a tough time trying to understand Paul’s message.  If you have ever come across passages like that and wrestled, you know what I’m talking about.

Other times however, God’s Word is pretty simple.  You read it, you get it, now you have the joy of living it out in your life.  John 14:15 is one of those passages.

"The spiritual life is not hidden inside us. It’s practical–it affects everything we say and do. Living in the presence of God, being in touch with God’s Spirit, being fine-tuned to God’s sensitivities involves us in reflecting God’s concerns for all people, resonating God’s moral tone for the world, embodying God’s will through our living. In fact, the Old and New Testaments indicate that you can tell a person’s relationship with God by looking at his or her relationship with other people." 

-Don Postema, Space for God, 156.

The mind never thinks without a picture.

-Aristotle

We are an image driven culture. There are thousands upon thousands of images that we are drowning in everyday. I believe this is why God continues to reveal Himself in tangible and visual ways. 

 We live in a day and age where we rarely see real bloodshed. TV and movies are full of violence, but we don’t often see real blood taken from a man or an animal. I think it is hard to imagine the significance of Jesus really shedding His blood for us. Really giving us His all. I could show you pictures and movies, but I thought it would be better for you to wrestle with the Scriptures. They are full of blood filled stories that seem rather gruesome, but when we understand their importance, they are profound.

 Jesus never said one negative thing about Himself. This is a pattern we should begin to develop in our lives. There is a verse that I think will help us with this. It says this, 

Only let us live up to what we have already attained.

- Philippians 3:16

The past does not define who we are! We need to live up to what we have already attained in Christ. What has God already attained for us? –Blessing, hope, forgiveness, future, redemption, and the list goes on and on. These are the things that need to define our present. Once we start living up to the things that have already been attained for us, we will experience the life God designed to be lived in and through us. Read that last sentence again. So the question is: What has God already attained for us that reveals who we are in Him?