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Bloomfield Church of God Community Blog
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It is funny how powerful an invitation can be. A personal invitation can make a person feel unique, special and cared for. It is nice to receive an invitation to a wedding, birthday party or any other special event. Being invited to dinner with friends just seems to make my wife and I very excited! It doesn’t matter if it is a special event or dinner with friends ---knowing that people choose to spend time with us is very humbling. We always leave the event talking about the great time we had. This makes me think about the amazing and fantastic invitation our Lord has for us!! In John chapter 21 Peter and a few of the disciples decided to go fishing after the Resurrection. It was definitely a rough trip—they fished all night and caught nothing. When morning came they heard a sweet voice call to them and tell them to cast the net on the other side of the boat. The voice was Jesus and the men caught 153 “great” fish. Of course they headed to the shore and saw Jesus…He had come to the shore and prepared a meal for the weary fishermen. John 21:12 includes the beautiful invitation from the Lord: “come and dine.” Not only had Jesus given the men a mountain of fish but gave them a sample dinner on the shore. What an invitation! God does not show favoritism (Acts 10:34)…we know the invitation to “come and dine” is for us as well. We can step off the boat and spend time on the shore with our Lord. As I mentioned earlier, it is wonderful and exciting to receive an invitation from friends. It is beyond words to know we have that invitation from the Lord Jesus! Get alone with Jesus today…you too can have a “sample dinner” in preparation for the glory to come!!
Jesus saith unto them, Come and dine... John 21:12a
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I can’t help but laugh at my son. He just turned three and is now at the point where he is a little afraid of “monsters”. Every once in a while he will say “I think I just heard a monster” or “Mommy, are there any monsters?” Of course we respond with the same “There aren’t any monsters” and he will say “Why?” and we come back with “They don’t exist…they are only pretend”. That will satisfy him and he will go back to his play time. My wife and I will giggle after we have this discussion with him. The process seems to work this way: he starts to become afraid, he takes that fear to us, we tell him the truth and he is satisfied…to play, sleep, eat, whatever he was doing. It is a little funny that little ones can be so afraid of monsters or the “boogey-man” (at least that is what we called him when I was a kid). Soon he will grow up, realize monsters are not real and we will no longer hear these questions…he will be at peace, right? We roll our eyes and think a child’s obsession with monsters is hilarious. Kid’s stuff!! Haha!! But you know I have learned that monsters simply change forms as we become adults. Many times we can find ourselves living in fear. Not of ugly and scary-looking monsters but ugly situations like overdue bills, illness, job situations, relationship problems…you name it. I think we need to learn from our little ones. They become afraid and take the need to us! We comfort them and they can sleep in peace. We hold onto our fears/needs and refuse to hand them over to our Father in Heaven. We may pray but we refuse to let the peace of God invade our lives. Instead of listening to His voice and allowing Him to work in our lives we carry the monster around in our mind…causing us stress, sleepless nights, illness and total unhappiness. Why don’t we give these monsters to our loving Heavenly Father? Also, be sure to trust and listen to Him. We can then be like my son and have peace of mind. If the fear returns give it to God again. If you are serving Him you have no reason to fear those silly monsters!!
Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7
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I have heard the old saying “stop and smell the roses” since I was a kid. That concept never meant anything to me until our son was born just over three years ago. Until that moment time was just something that ticked by…seconds to minutes to hours to days –you get the picture. When William was born things changed. Time began to mean something to me…especially since it seemed to fly by (even during the nights when there was less than enough sleep). As the days and months passed time began to seem like my arch-enemy. The daily grind seemed to team-up with time to come against me in every part of my life. The “mental schedule” seemed to dominate. After a few months I found myself simply existing…going through the same routine each and every day. Even my devotion time with the Lord simply became part of my daily routine. In my mind I was “doing” but not really “enjoying”. Almost a year ago in my devotion time with the Lord it hit me…I needed to “stop and smell the roses.” I needed to stop and count my blessings. I needed to slow down and enjoy everything God had given me. I realized I needed to give my busy schedule to Jesus (no person on this earth has ever been busier than our Lord was when we ministered) and let Him take care of us. I needed to enjoy life. So what did I do? Through the Lord’s help I let my guard down –and threw that “mental schedule” out the window. I began to do little projects with my son like fixing a cabinet that wasn’t really broken, telling him a story, playing with trucks…that type of thing. I began taking time-out with my wife…sitting on the couch with her and enjoying our favorite Andy Griffith episodes. I began to meditate on the Lord as I lay down to sleep…asking Him to make me the man, husband, father and pastor I needed to be & thanking Him for this wonderful life He has given me. I began to think about how much fun it was to play basketball with my son that day and how much of a blessing it was to finish the day cuddling with my wife and laughing about the events in Mayberry. Are you struggling with the “mental schedule?” My advice would be to “smell the roses” --give your daily schedule to Jesus. Remember to stop and enjoy what the Lord has given you. Most of all take time to praise & thank the Lord for those very blessings. God will honor it and your life will begin to change. God bless!! Praise the LORD. Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever. Psalms 106:1 NIV
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