food for thought

And the devil said to him, "I will give You all this domain and its glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I give it to whom I wish. Therefore if you worship me it shall be yours." Jesus answered him, "It is written, You Shall worship the Lord your God and serve Him only." Luke 4:6-8

So, the Questions are: what are we wishing for?, what or whom are we worshipping?, and whom are we serving? Self is probably a correct answer to each question for a great number of us. Let's face it, we do not enjoy being uncomfortable, we are always looking for bigger, better, and easier. Most of our homes are filled to the brim with so much stuff we can't find anything, so we think we need bigger houses to store all our stuff. The lure is intoxicating and the weight is crushing to our very souls. The irony here is that someone must labor to pay for all these things; and yet we wonder why we are so busy and miserable. To quote Shakespeare we have become like Lady Macbeth " out, out, you damned spot", stained in the consequences of our own sins. We have dug this hole and how do we climb out? Seem impossible? it is! We have no strength, no wisdom, no common sense of our own. We cannot will ourselves to climb out, but that is just what we try to do. Like mice we jump right back on that treadmill working as hard as we can to end up nowhere except exhausted! Sounds like the life I work so hard to live, yet I somehow find it the greatest challenge to surrender, give it ALL up, to admit I cannot manage; that I have failed. I must be joking here, or I must be mad to do such a thing. The rich man asked Jesus, what shall I do to receive eternal life? When Jesus told him and he said "I do these", Jesus said "you lack one thing. Go sell all you have and come and follow after Me." The rich man was heartbroken and turned and walked away. We are that rich man. Failure is never something we want others to see in us and yet we are here to learn. We must learn to invert the paradigm. If we indeed are saved by the blood of the Lamb, then we indeed have spiritual eyes to see. We do not want to see our reflection because... well it's not so pretty for any of us. We must be willing to open our spiritual eyes and see through the eyes of Christ, having great joy in being a failure, letting the world see us with all our imperfections. The world is great at producing masks for us to wear so we don't have to come to grips with our true image. "Every knee shall bow..." We must die to ourselves now to live. Like jumping off the high dive for the first time, we must take the leap not turning back. We will discover the exhilaration of a selfless us, filled with the joy we have been searching for in this materialistic world. We will lose our appetite for possessions because we will have found a much greater joy in the presence of our Lord. Sound tempting , it should because it is the very life Christ Jesus died to give us my friend. Let the devil give all these worldly things to whomever he pleases for it is written " Greater love has no man, than to lie down his life for a friend, and Jesus said " I call you friend." "You shall worship the Lord your God and serve Him only." Our part is to jump off that high dive each and every day and walk in the presence of the Lord and "He shall direct our path." That's it we must surrender all and not be the sad rich man who walked away.
Are ye able said the Master to be crucified with Me? " Are we willing to put ourselves in the arms of Galilee ? This is the only way my friend to invert the paradigm.
"I surrender all, all to Him I owe , sin has left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow!"

Heavenly Father I pray you will forgive us, you will walk with us and talk with us, grant us favor in your eyes for your Glory alone, may we have the grace to stay centered in You. Grab us when our minds wonder, so we may joyfully acknowledge we are yours in all things. In you Son's Jesus Christ name I pray Amen

Love to all in Christ Jesus C:)