ClydeStyle

Category: Truth

  • Spread love

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    There is something that this world needs more than anything and that is love.

    There is not enough love being spread throughout our world.  Clearly we are too angry, sad, bitter, envious and covetous to allow love to even come out. The bible tells us that love never fails, but instead of failing it hopes all things; endures all things; and believes all things. Now that’s an interesting combination!

    To hope in something is not merely a wish, but it’s a great expectation that something will be a reality. So, if someone fails you, you could demonstrate love toward them that would make them successful. The hope then is not based on their ability to perform, but your ability to unconditionally love.

    Love also endures and this endurance gets stronger as time goes on, not wary. This endurance imitates God’s long suffering towards us. Therefore, love not only powers the victory, but it grants patience to those on the sidelines so that they may bear it.
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    Then, finally, love believes all things. Our failure or final attempt is always the result of disbelief. What makes a person not try again? You guessed it, disbelief! Love always says — try again because victory is coming! Love believes that any situation can be turned around. Love believes victory is always an option.

    So my friend, as the song by Take 6 says, “spread love instead of telling lies. Spread love because the truth needs no disguise.”

  • The power of one

    untitledIt is easy to look at this world and all of the evil there in and feel that as one person we are powerless. It seems like my voice and vote doesn’t matter and my single voice is too small.

    Well, this ideal is family to the fear and doubt that is given by the evil one. This concept has halted a lot of would be powerful movements. A wild forest fire can be started with one match and whole wars have been started with one shot.

    What if the energy that was donated to the negative thoughts were reserved for the one? The one who would dare to speak out against injustice or the one who would dare to love their spouse in spite of infidelity.

    Or the one who would dare to challenge a bully or plead for the less fortunate. Or the one who would choose to see that the glass really is half full or understand that the best dancing is done in the rain.

    Jesus made a huge impact living only 33 mortal years on earth. God has given most of us more time and the same power!

    Let’s celebrate the power of one and do something with it.

  • Killing faith

    There are many different faiths of the past being expressed through tradition and culture and sometimes law. The cumulative traditions attempt to ignite present faith, but it’s not working.

    In our society we allow human experience, human merit and human tradition to define our faith instead of allowing the word of God to do such. Faith should be deeper and more personal than mere religion. It then allows for a person or group to respond to the value and power of God as perceived and grasped through the forms of cumulative tradition. These forms serve only as an extension of what we truly believe in our hearts. The stronger the inner faith, the more visible the belief.needforfaith

    This is similar to the faith of the past being used to increase the faith in the present. Typical bible classes use this format to increase the faith of members by teaching the things from the past. The apostle Paul wrote in his epistle to the Romans that the things which were written aforetime were written for our learning and that in the understanding of these things we would have hope.

    However, we can’t afford to allow faith to be lessened to simple belief. Faith needs to be allowed to breathe and produce a product that relies on the transcendent and fosters trust in another — this defines a resurgence of faith. Many churches stop evolving and reach a point where tradition supersedes God’s word. In many places the members don’t even know the difference. Bible classes are not well attended and teachers and leaders, instead of studying and creating their own lessons for their flock, purchase generic material that does not address the issues of today. Faith has to step out from the exclusive assignment of religious belief to an action that allows us to trust and build hope. faith

    I believe the only way to really accomplish this is by taking the members out of the traditional bible classes and take the teaching to their world. Classes need to be inclusive and outside of the traditional setting. A resurgence of in-home bible studies designed to put faith in motion. This goes beyond small groups which were designed primarily for fellowship. In-home bible studies would be equivalent to “labs” that a college student would have if he was taking biology or chemistry. The only true task of the Lord’s church today is to make the Gospel of Jesus Christ relevant in the 21st Century.

    If we want to be truly transformed by the renewing of our minds, it has to be through our understanding of God’s word. We must study to show ourselves approved of God. If not, we will kill our faith.

  • Becoming truly independent on Independence Day

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    As June comes to a close we are set to focus on a summer which is in full swing.

    The month of July reminds us that as a country, we took measures years ago to insure that we would enjoy freedom. We declared our independence and wrote songs about it. Heroes secured their place in history and it has been taught to future generations.

    Wouldn’t it be cool if we not only remembered our independence as a nation, but we examined our own lives and sought independence for ourselves?

    Over time we develop bad habits, bad relationships and bad dispositions. Maybe instead of complaining about them we decide to do something about them.

    Maybe you have been a dumping ground for other people’s problems or a scapegoat for other people’s troubles.

    Maybe you are in an unhealthy relationship or you are financially strapped because you are living above your means.

    Maybe you are enabling someone in a negative way that keeps them handicapped from dealing with their own problems.

    Whatever your lot, you can decide on Independence Day to free yourself! You should be in control of your life! Who better to make decisions for you, but you?

    This just takes some planning and praying. You can do this. Free your mind and you body will follow. This would make July 4, 2013 the best holiday ever!

    Think about it and make it happen. You deserve it!

  • Acknowledging him has it’s benefits

    We are half way through 2013 and it seems like we were just singing Auld Lang Syne (as much as we can sing that song but you get the picture). Many of us made resolutions and before Valentine’s Day we were done. I would like to offer a word of encouragement for those who have not made the most of this year.

    Despite failed attempts and unmet expectations you are still here. And that’s a good thing. I know it seems like you’ve let yourself down and there may be people in your life constantly reminding you that you’re not good enough, but there is a God my friend. And this GOD loves you.Image

    He loves you enough to watch you make decisions that don’t make much sense. And he doesn’t intervene because he doesn’t want to take away your free will. He loves you enough to make sure things don’t get too out of hand. Imagine how much worse things could have been? If you thought about it, you could think of folks who are doing worse. In fact it seems that no matter how bad you are doing, there is someone doing worse.

    These are the little things that the Lord stays on top of while he is waiting for us to acknowledge him. In fact, he said that if we would acknowledge him here, he would acknowledge us before his father in heaven (Matt. 10:32).

    Why don’t you spend the rest of this year acknowledging him. The bible tells us to trust in the Lord with all our hearts and lean not unto our own understanding, but in all our ways acknowledge him and he will direct our paths (Prov. 3:5,6).

    He’s waiting on you. Call him up friend, call him up in prayer.

  • Hope in the Storm

    Eye of the StormIf you are fortunate to live in an area where the seasons change, you have undoubtedly heard the phrase April showers bring May flowers. But metaphorically speaking, whenever there is a difficult time in our lives, we count it as a storm. Some storms are far worse than others, but nevertheless we go through storms. During these metaphorical storms we always want to do work. We think there is some deeper meaning to the storm or that there is some unfinished business we need to do. In a literal storm, we know not to go outside and we take cover as to be shielded and protected from the storm.

    No matter which storm we are referring to, the latter is always true: We need to wait. The bible tells us in the book of James chapter one: “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” This is the true purpose of the storm. We don’t like storms because they are so unpredictable. We don’t know what to do about it, there is no cry for help and we can’t control it. The only thing we can do is wait — and that’s the dilemma!

    Wait literally means to stay in place with expectation or to remain stationary in readiness. We have such a problem with waiting and with expectations and that’s because we don’t want to be let down. The feeling of not wanting to be let down is cutting us off from our blessing. God spoke through his Prophet Jeremiah to his people of old and said, “Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.” What the prophet forgot to tell us was that we were going to get the triumph from going through the trial. There is no way around this.

    God has not forgotten us and he is not asleep. He’s where he has always been and he has done marvelous things! Do we not have the faith to wait? Do we not have the courage to stand despite the odds we face. God’s people are not fearful people. We never need to fear a storm for we know that our God is waiting for us in the midst of the storm. It is in the eye of the storm where you will find peace and joy and God’s love. He’s there. Trust him. Go through that storm and count it all joy because He has something to show you!

  • Unconditional marriage?

    unconditional loveSo we know that the divorce rate is really high. But it doesn’t have to be. Is it really possible that all of these divorced people just happened to marry the wrong person?

    I know that there have been some in terrible abusive relationships and for safety reasons they had to get out. But the lion share of divorces stem from unmet expectations and selfish motives.

    No one told them that unconditional love was supposed to be brought to the marriage, not generated from within.

    They didn’t know that forgiveness wasn’t optional when they said “I do” and that expectations were only conditions you place on yourself.

    They were ignorant to what things should have been the most important. It’s a bad feeling to be judged by how much money you make, how you dress, how shapely your hips are or the size of your breasts. It’s extremely shallow for someone to expect their own version of what’s perfect to be matched or exceeded by their partner.

    Of all the scriptures we take literally, no one bothered to take Jesus seriously when he said, “If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out!” Or “If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off!” (Matt. 5:29-30).

    The simple fix for marriage is for each party to take a step back and really look at what they are bringing to the table. What you are bringing to the table can’t just look good to you alone. It needs to be valuable to the person you pledged to live forever with.

    If it is not, and it probably isn’t, the two of you need to talk and stop playing married and truly work at being married.

  • Bye, bye guilt!

     

    We live our lives and struggle with consistently figuring out how to negotiating right from wrong. Sometimes revenge feels right, but it is never right. Sometimes having feelings for someone outside of your marriage may feel right, but it too is never right. Even stealing can seem right to a person in certain circumstances. With our lust and enticement from Satan, almost anything can feel right.

    What is amazing to me is that in the moment we don’t feel anything but vindication and justification. Once we come to ourselves, the only things left to feel are guilt, sorrow and regret. There are even people walking around further punishing themselves because they feel they don’t deserve forgiveness. What makes matters worse is that there are people who will exploit these relationships and seek to control another person because they have a hard time with forgiveness.Businessman Touching Domino Pieces Arranged in a Line

    God sent his son so that we would not ever need to struggle with guilt. God giving his son was meant to be sufficient for anyone struggling with guilt. Jesus became an unlimited credit card for sins and all anyone in the family needs to do is call on him and he will take care of the tab. Some may feel guilty for running up a tab, but all Jesus says is, don’t worry about paying me back, just pay it forward. So we would allow our present experiences to control future experiences. Since I had a huge debt that was paid for me, I would extend in a like fashion this same grace to another. Sounds easy enough doesn’t it?

    Well, why do we have such a hard time with this? Wouldn’t it be nice to live in a community that understands this principle? Wouldn’t it be nicer to just meet a group of church folks who believe it and consistently practice it? Truth is, this is a personal principle that is up to every Christian to uphold alone. The purpose is for one person to affect another. It’s supposed to be a domino effect. All God needs is for someone to knock down the first domino. Will that be you dear reader?

  • Thank God! Spring is here!

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    Spring symbolizes a new beginning. The death of winter is gone and all things are made new. Spring is like a second chance.

    Have you ever been in an unhealthy relationship? Or worked a dead-end job that stressed you out whenever you thought about the drive to it? Or how about a bad circumstance that needs to end? The advent of spring should be the start of a new beginning for you.

    New beginnings are symbolized in scripture by the number eight. It means the next in a new series or a new beginning. For example, when Noah was told to build the ark and warn the wicked world that God was angry, he preached about the next chapter or new beginning the world would take. You see, God was getting ready to start over and Noah and everyone who listened to him would be part of that new series.

    It is no wonder then in 1 Peter 3:20 that it says of Noah’s time that “8 souls were saved by water”. And in 2 Pet. 2:5, Noah is referred to as a preacher of righteousness and called the “eighth person”. I would’ve  thought with Noah being the head of his household, he would be number 1. This text calls him the eighth person for a reason: He represents the new beginning. He was the next in a new series.

    There are many others in scripture that could be pointed out, but the point is to show the healing power of Spring. This is your new beginning. What are you going to do with it? The rest of your year will be dictated by what you do now, today, during the spring season.

    It’s time to stop planning and making excuses. Now is the time for action! Don’t let everything around you change and become beautiful and you stay the same.

    You deserve a new beginning. God knew that and allowed you to live and see the Spring. Make the most of it! This is your season!

  • Jesus — the way, truth, life (Part 3)

    TheWayTruthLife10What is your life worth?

    Each year thousands of people commit suicide because they don’t see their worth. We go through life trying to prove to ourselves that we are worth something. We put in overtime with our jobs, we help out when we can and we even give money away to prove our worth. Kids in school are troubled by bullies who point out all of their flaws. They take to heart everything negatively that is said to them without regard for the good things. When kids (and adults) are faced with these type of challenges it seems as though the only option is to stay at home and cry.

    Many people are walking around desiring to be with someone that will give them more self-esteem credits. Each time they date and get hurt, they lower their standards more and more in an attempt to lessen the pain. They end up settling for “G” candidate thinking that they are not worthy of the “A” candidate. Furthermore, in America we spend money. Everything revolves around money so it stands to reason that value would be placed on everything here. Our lives should not be for sale. It’s tough when ad campaigns tell you that you are too fat, too dark, too skinny, too short or your hair is not good enough, your feet are too big or even your teeth aren’t white enough. Plastic surgery is a billion dollar industry. Low self-esteem doesn’t care how much money you have or what color you are. As a result we really don’t know who we are.

    Thank God for Jesus! You see, he placed value on all of us when he died on the cross for the sins of the world. Through his sacrifice he is trying to tell us that we have value. His actions prove we have worth — why else would the Son of God waste his time on us? If John 3:16 is correct (and it is!) then God loved us and was eager to save us. He sent his son to die for the sins of the world and simply says let me give you rest.

    Dear readers, I hope you know that there is no better life than one spent serving the Lord and enjoying the blessings he gives us. To live a life reciprocating the love God thrusts toward us is clearly an abundant life. Jesus said that he is the way, the truth and the life and he is right. There is no way to the father except by the mediator he chose and that is Christ.

    Help me spread the word that salvation has been brought down to earth and by it God has added value to every life. All we have to do now is live like it!