Tag Archives: love

First Flower: Friday Fictioneers

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PHOTO PROMPT © The Reclining Gentleman

First Flower

By JE Lillie

He was invisible. The third of seven children. His two elder brothers were soldiers in the war. His sisters were startling beauties. Then of course there was Bobby, the baby, the favorite. It was a miracle he didn’t forget his own name in the shadow of his siblings.

“Sam, Sam! that’s it.” the girl at the register exclaimed.

“What’s that?” Sam asked.

“Your name. Your name is Samuel right? I see you at school everyday. ” Her smile blinded him.

Just like that buying a loaf of bread turned into falling in love.

fUSCIA

Happy Valentines! This is my response to Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers Challenge.

Every week about 100 authors share 100-word stories regarding a photo prompt chosen by Rochelle.

This week Another of Rochelle’s regular contributors has won an award for her short story. Congratulations to Margaret Leggatt! Her award winning story “COMING UP ROSES”, CAN BE FOUND BY CLICKING HERE.

The Road Through Romans: The Thing About Spiritual Gifts…

Posted on by under Pastor Wrinkles, Uncategorized

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We are continuing today our discussion through the Book of Romans. We’ll be spending at least another day in Romans 1:11 because there is a bit more I have to say on the subject of spiritual gifts.

Paul wrote,

 I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong—Romans 1:11 NIV

I suppose most of you don’t know this but I wasn’t always a Christian. I wasn’t raised in a Christian home. My parents were agnostics influenced by the early New Age movement. In my pre-teen and early teen years I was an avowed pagan. I wouldn’t have called myself wiccan, exactly, but I did spend time channeling spirits and talking to “angels”.  I tried astral projection and did have a few out of body experiences.

It was more than a flight of fancy. I experienced real power in my pagan practices. I craved power. I craved strength because, God knows, I wasn’t finding those things in my earthly experience.

My initial decision to attend church was actually at the insistence of one of my spirit guides. I think I was supposed to make some kind of scene in the church and disrupt the service. That didn’t happen. I remember walking in the door and being hit with the presence of the most amazing love I had ever experienced. I was overwhelmed by it actually. It wasn’t the preaching that did it. I could hardly understand the Pastor who was from Trinidad. It wasn’t the music. There really wasn’t any. The piano player only knew “Jesus Loves Me” So she would get up and clap to any song that wasn’t that.  And the I didn’t experience love because the people were wicked friendly or anything. It was New England after all. There was one lady in the congregation who prophesied just about every week. She was so mean when she did it,the Pastor eventually asked her to stop and when she wouldn’t he had to kick her out of the church.

The love came through the people from God as a spiritual gift to me. It was an atmosphere they created more than an action they practiced. It wasn’t what they did that brought the love. It was was Who dwelt in them that caused me to experience it, as I sat in the church service and heard the people worship. It was a gift imparted.

For the first time in my life, love was becoming a force stronger than every other spirit I had ever experienced. In its presence the voices in my head were silenced and I was left powerless in its wake.

BUT

Then I learned that this power, this love, wanted to dwell inside me and strengthen me for life.

One of the reasons I became a Christian was because I became convinced that no other power in the universe could match this God of love I was experiencing. I wanted to align myself with that kind of power. It was not a question of me accepting Christ. I knew He was bigger than me and bigger than all the other spirits I had been entertaining. It was a question of Him accepting me. The question I had to toy with once I acknowledged that God was God and there was no other was, “would He accept me?”

He did! The spiritual gift of salvation was imparted to me the very  day I asked.  I will go on from here to speak about the impartation of the Spirit called the baptism of the Holy Spirit tomorrow, but first…

why don’t you take a bit and tell me about your own experience of meeting God.

If you have missed any of our discussions through Romans they can be found on THE ROAD THROUGH ROMANS PAGE

Don’t Be Mr. In Between Pt. 4

Posted on by under Pastor Wrinkles

Today we will conclude our discussion on “friendship with the world.”

If you have missed any of our previous discussion segments you can find them….

HERE

HERE

OR HERE

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Yesterday we defined the terms “friendship with the world from James 4 and 1 John 2

Here’s the problem. Most of us mess with Mr. In Between. We do the absolute opposite of what we should do. We make friends with the world by accentuating the negative in our lives and by eliminating the positive.

We build up pride in our achievements and call it self-improvement or positive affirmation. I have no problem with saying someone did a good job or even “I did a good job”; But if I fail to recognize the role God plays in my success, if I take His credit then it is pride!

We encourage ourselves to hunger and thirst after lifestyles God never meant us to have by buying into the thought that Jesus intends everyone to have the best and newest of everything and so we begin to spend our resources for our own wants and needs rather than investing our resources with the Kingdom in mind. Folks when you get to Heaven God is not going to ask you what cable package you had or what television you watched it on. He is going to ask what you did with the resources HE gave you. He is going to ask you how what you did pointed other people towards Him.

Finally, we accentuate a life focused around forward advancement creature comforts and worldly success and pleasure and we eliminate the place of prayer.

God is challenging us in these days. God is challenging us towards relationship because He loves us. God has great things in store for you. God has amazing miracles in store for you. Some of you God would use to bring restoration to your family. Some of you are about to learn what it means to walk in a healing anointing. Some of you are about to be used as prophets. I believe there are people reading who are about to go on incredible God adventures . Some of you may have the opportunity to lay your hands on cancer patients and watch them recover. Some may even be given the opportunity to see the dead raised and lepers cleansed as you pray. But before He can do any of that you need to let go of your friendship with the world because it is holding you back.Mr. In Between is holding you back. Perhaps you have sold out for a paycheck. Maybe you have given up on God’s plan because you know it will displease someone important to you. You are holding back because you know the anointing means getting rid of your pet sin or that impure relationship.

Can I encourage you with these words of Jesus from  the Gospel of Mark?
Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel 30will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. 31But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”

There is a price to pay for the life God wants you to have. But the price is never higher than the reward, even when the price is everything you have. So I dare to call you today. Will you leave behind your friendship with the world today and give everything to Jesus? He will give everything He has to you.

Jealousy Demanding As the Grave Pt. 4

Posted on by under Pastor Wrinkles

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We have been discussing the nature of God’s love for us in this series.

If you have missed any part of the conversation you can pick it up

HERE

HERE

AND HERE

Today we are discussing the JEALOUS NATURE of God.

God loves you. God is crazy for you and that makes Him jealous for you.

God is not jealous of you. He is jealous for you. He wants to be first and only in your life. He wants the final word on everything: He wants the final word on what church you go to; He wants the final word on how much time you spend in private prayer; He wants the final word on what ministry you participate in; He wants the final word on whom you date and on whom you marry or even if you marry; He wants the final word on where you work and the final word on what you do with your free time; When you don’t give Him the final word He gets jealous.

If God were a human we would probably call him a control freak or maybe even a stalker; But God is not human. He is the creator of the Universe. We were made for Him and He has given all of Himself to us. Only when we let Him be God can our lives truly begin to click.

When we don’t let God call the shots we are practicing idolatry. God knows idolatry will destroy us. It will wreck our lives. He is jealous for us because He knows that He is what is best for us. Hear me, if we can come to the place where every decision is put before Him, the place where we willingly submit to His plan, then our lives will be truly full, meaningful and all that they should be.

Do you know God loves you? Do you know that He is protecting you. Do you know that HE is thinking about you? Do you know that He is jealous for you because He wants to see you become everything you can be and not be held back by distractions and idols that will destroy you?

So what should our response be to this kind of love?

Jesus loved us so much He died for us so that we might have eternal life. In light of that we should receive His gift of love. We should live for Him. And we should prioritize His kingdom.

Three responses to His love.

Receive His gift. Receive Him. In prayer let Him know  that His love is free to invade you and you won’t fight it.

Live for Him. Every single one of us has an area of personal holiness that the Spirit is talking to us about. Living for Him means to start obeying Him.

Finally prioritize His kingdom. He loved us enough to include us in the Kingdom. He expects us to be part of building it. When the Jews rebuilt Jerusalem under their governor Nehemiah no one got to sit down and watch while the rest worked. Every man and every woman for that matter in the city had a part in building the part of the wall that was nearest to their house.

Your responsibility as one of God’s loved ones is to build the part of the Kingdom that is near you. Support what God is doing in your area. God is crazy in love with us and we should desire to show Him crazy love back by receiving His gift, by living for Him and by prioritizing His kingdom.

Where have you seen the love of God active in your life this week?

Jealousy Demanding As the Grave Pt. 3

Posted on by under Pastor Wrinkles

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Much can be said about the love of God, more than we have room for here. Still, we have begun speaking of it and so we must continue until our meager powers fail, though the depth of love never will.

If you have missed our conversation on God’s radical love up to this point, you can catch up

HERE

AND HERE

Now let’s continue with our discussion about God’s love…

God is crazy about you! He wants what is best for you! He sees what is best better than you do! Everything God does is motivated out of love for you and what is best for you. when you fight against it you are fighting against true love and your own blessing.

You see, God knows what is best for you because…He thinks about you constantly. In fact He cannot get you off of His mind Psalm 139:17-18

How precious are your thoughts about me,b O God.

They cannot be numbered!

18I can’t even count them;

they outnumber the grains of sand!

The truth is, He has been thinking about you since before the foundations of the earth. In fact,He had your life all planned out and was thinking about how to be involved in it before you were even born Psalm 139 goes on to say,

You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. Psalm 139:16

God loves you. He knew every trial you would face. He knew every difficulty you would walk through and some of you have been through life threatening difficulties. He was there with you in them. You survived because of Him and He has a plan to redeem even the most evil of circumstances. He is going to give you back what you have lost. He is going to restore you to better than you were. He is going to heal the wound that Satan put in your body and in your spirit. He is going to save you unto eternal life because He loves you desperately. Remember, if you give Him an inch He’ll take a mile (see pt. 2) .  All you have to do to experience that redemption, that deliverance, that healing, that restoration is let Him in and then follow where He leads.

How is your life leading you to God’s restoration right now?

Jealousy Demanding As the Grave Pt. 2

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Yesterday we started a discussion on the love of God. If you missed it you can find the conversation…

HERE

Oh the deep deep love of Jesus!

Oh the deep deep love of Jesus!

Now on to today’s topic…

Do you understand God loves you?  Because God loves you He is trying to save your eternal life.

To save your eternal life God continually works to draw you away from sin and into righteousness. He actively works to get sin out of your life. He is trying to rescue you from danger. Sin is dangerous. The truth is though,many of us don’t hold a biblical worldview of sin. We don’t really think sin is all that dangerous. In fact much of the time we consider sin just another form of fun!

And we are not wrong in that.

In Hebrews 11:25 we are taught that there is a pleasure to sin that lasts for a season. This is the part of sin that is fun. It is the part of sin that makes us think that God is trying to withhold something good from us when He tries to get us away from sin. Truth be told, It is pleasurable to sin.

But the Bible tells us that sin is a double-edged sword.

In Hebrews chapter 10 we are warned, “Dear friends, if we deliberately continue sinning after we have received knowledge of the truth, there is no longer any sacrifice that will cover these sins. 27There is only the terrible expectation of God’s judgment and the raging fire that will consume his enemies.”

You see, God loves you enough to protect you from that which will ultimately destroy you.

Here is something else I know about God. If you give Him and inch He is going to take a mile. This is something that many of you didn’t get when you invited Jesus to be Lord of your life. Jesus is absolutely crazy about you. Because He loves you, He is not content with just a tiny little bit of you. That being said, many of us joined the faith thinking we were just going to get forgiven of our sins by Jesus. We thought we would have this passing acquaintance with Him. You know what I mean. We planned to visit Jesus for special events. We planned to check in with Him when it was convenient. We thought we might do stuff for him if it wasn’t too inconvenient. Nothing serious. Easy Peasy.

The only problem is that is not how God thought about it on the day you approached Him for forgiveness. On that day, He moved in and set up residence. He started trying to take over. Now you find God is messing with your life and you don’t like it. You want to be forgiven. God wants you to be Holy. You want to go out and party on a Friday night after work and God shows up in your heart and starts making you feel all guilty about that drink in your hand or the girl at your hip. He just won’t leave you alone.

You feel like David in Psalm 139 when he said

I can never escape from your Spirit!

I can never get away from your presence!

8If I go up to heaven, you are there;

if I go down to the grave,a you are there.

9If I ride the wings of the morning,

if I dwell by the farthest oceans,

10even there your hand will guide me,

and your strength will support me.

11I could ask the darkness to hide me

and the light around me to become night—

12but even in darkness I cannot hide from you.

To you the night shines as bright as day.

Do you ever feel like you cannot get away from God but you wish you could?

Jealousy Demanding As the Grave Pt. 1

Posted on by under Pastor Wrinkles

Cornerstone Church in Winchendon is doing a study through the book, Good or God by John Bevere. The comments of our Sunday morning sermons have been loosely based off this work for the last three weeks. Our lead Pastor has been away for a few weeks with family and that has given me the opportunity to share from the pulpit.

Here is the beginning of last Sunday’s sermon, “Jealousy Demanding As the Grave.”

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Death is a powerful force. If you do not believe that just ask anyone who has had truck with it this year. It is called in 1 Corinthians 15, “the final enemy”. Many families in our congregation have confronted this  enemy in the year 2015 and have fresh knowledge of just how devastating a meet up with this monster can be. It takes one life and crushes an entire group of people.

But today I have good news! Death may be a powerful force but the Lord Jesus Christ is even more powerful! Death may be mighty but the love of God is mightier still!

Listen to what the Bible has to say in this regard:

love is as strong as death,

its jealousyc as enduring as the grave.d

Love flashes like fire,

the brightest kind of flame.

7Many waters cannot quench love,

nor can rivers drown it.

Song 8:6,7

Do you know that God loves you?

I mean do you know that God really loves you?

I mean do you know that God is passionately crazy about you?

Last week I shared a hard word (Saulish Worship) this week I am sharing the balance to that word. I am sharing “the sweet words of faith.”

God loves you! In the Psalms He calls you the apple of His eye. You are like the pupil of God’s eye, the first one He will raise His hand instinctively to protect. That is why He sent Jesus to die in your place because He was trying to instinctively protect you. Jesus died so that you can have life. All you have to do us accept His death on the cross and follow God out of the danger sin creates.

How does a person follow God out of the danger sin creates?

More tomorrow…

Short People

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Big, little, short or tall, Jesus Christ still loves us all.

Ken Knowlton's avatarartistdayapart

Whether you’ve been called short, vertically challenged, half-pint, small fry, pipsqueak, squirt, or oompa loompa, if you’re less than average height, you have been made aware that others have noticed it.  I’ve discovered that over the years I have shrunk an inch.  Since I was only 5′ 7″ tall to begin with and with the average height of American males being just under 5′ 10″, I guess I definitely fall into this category.

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Back in 1977 Randy Newman wrote a humorous (and totally politically incorrect) ditty that got a great deal of airtime.  One part really stood out for me:

Short people are just the same as you and I,
A fool such as I.
All men are brothers until the day they die.
It’s a wonderful world.

Criticisms of various aspect of our lives is something that we have all faced at one time or another.  Someone is too…

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Love’s Not For Sissys

Posted on by under Pastor Wrinkles

I was listening to this song in my afternoon devotion. It reminded me that love is not the sweet mushy thing that our culture has sometimes made it out to be. Love is tough as nails, tenacious, ferocious. It toughens our heart while never hardening it. It calls us to hang on even as we let go. It calls us to release control even while continuing to urge others to become their best selves. It can drive us until our backs are against the wall and at last set us free from our worst prisons. Love is not for sissys. It’s a call to arms for the world’s greatest warriors!