Time to Renew Your Subscription

If you have ever subscribed to a magazine, book club, or something similar, at some point you would receive a notice about renewing your subscription.  The notice would draw your attention to the original commitment you made and force you to make a decision about whether or not you wanted to continue. You might have even been given a choice to extend your commitment even further.

But, what does it actually mean to subscribe to something?  A few synonyms for "subscribe" are:  pledge, promise, and contribute.

When we first accepted God's gift of salvation and commited our lives to Jesus Christ, we, in essence, made a pledge, or promise, to contribute our heart, mind, soul and strength to God.  Most of us understood that our minimum pledge included attending worship and bible study regularly so we could learn and grow spiritually.

So,why is it that, after initially subscribing to worship and study regularly-- and enjoying the fruits of those activities--some of us simply let our subscription, our pledge expire?  Instead of letting it expire, we should be signing up for more! 

We should be adding daily prayer, quiet time with the Lord, outreach and missions, serving in a local church, learning about our spiritual gifts...whatever our hands find to do in the name of the Lord.

Instead of coming up with New Year's resolutions, some of us just need to blow the dust off of our old resolutions that we made when we first came to Jesus.  We need to return to our first love--to that moment we felt God's Holy Spirit nudging us to walk down that aisle or prompting us to give up something or someone standing in the way of our relationship with God.  We need to relive the moment that we truly said "Yes, Lord!" from the depths of our soul.

As we review our initial subscription and prepare to renew it, let's ask God to show us all of what our initial "yes" entailed.  There may be things in store for us that we were not ready to understand or receive in the beginning.  There may be more required of us than we were mature enough to perceive. 

The exciting thing is that, "He who began a good work in you will complete it until the day of Christ Jesus."  That means our subscription never really comes to an end, until the end.  None of us have "arrived" at all of who we are in Christ.  As long as we are living on this side of glory, we are all still in route and, as Maurette Brown Clark sings, "it ain't over until God says it's done."

So, if you are willing to continue pledging, promising and contributing to your relationship with God, consider this a friendly reminder that it's Time to Renew Your Subscription.

BNcouraged!

Rev. Karen

We're in the Presence of Royalty

"We're in the presence of royalty
It's our sovereign God and King
Here before Your throne
We bow at Your feet
We worship You, Holy King...."
(lyrics to "The Presence of Royalty" by Byron Cage)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkCDtfed2fE

How would you behave if you were in the presence of royalty?  Would you smile to acknowledge the presence of his or her majesty? Would you try to demonstrate respect by making sure you greet him or her properly?  If the royal custom required bowing or kneeling, would you do it?

When I think of the Christmas story of the three wise men worshiping the Christ, it makes me mindful of the fact that we, like the wise men, are in the presence of royalty.

Sometimes, in our quest to deepen our relationship with Jesus Christ we get a little too familiar with Him and forget that He is our sovereign God and King.  We get real comfortable and start speaking and behaving in ways that show we have forgotten that God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are omnipresent and always with us.  We are always in the presence of royalty.

Ignoring the Holy presence, we often seek joy and peace in people or things, oblivious to the fact that:

"It's in Your presence that I find joy
It's in Your presence that I find peace
I find rest for my soul and strength for my life
Lying here at your feet...."

Let's not allow stress or sorrow, tradition or other trappings to cause us to miss out on our audience with the King. Just think about it, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords desired so much to fellowship with us that He left His throne in glory to meet us on our turf!

"In Your presence there is fullness of joy
And in Your right hand are pleasures forever more...."

All the joy, peace and pleasure we could ever imagine--and beyond--are all within reach if we have enough faith to look past our circumstances and remember that we're in the presence of royalty.

Have a Merry Christmas and...

BNcouraged!

Rev. Karen

Who's Birthday Is It Anyway?

Please enjoy this re-posting of my blog from 2010....

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Sometimes, in all the flood of gift-giving at Christmas, we lose sight of whose birth we are actually celebrating.

Many years ago, one of the children's Bible study groups at my church held a Christmas celebration.  Everyone sang, "Happy Birthday, Jesus!" and began eating a specially decorated cake.  As the children eagerly grabbed their servings, we heard a small voice shout, "Save a piece for Jesus! Where is Jesus' piece?!"  This little girl could barely eat her piece of cake because she was so upset at the thought that we would celebrate Jesus' birthday, and then greedily consume all of His birthday cake. 

How many of us are consumed with Christmas, but fail to live our lives in such a way that shows we honor not only Jesus' birth, but His life, the new life He gave us and the eternal life He will escort us into when He returns? Perhaps we find it easier to leave Jesus in the manger--as a humble little baby who represents hope, joy and promise, instead of the one who declared, "I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but by me." 

Some of us love hearing the biblical accounts in scripture, but we don't enjoy being accountable to what is in the scripture. We memorize all the heroes and heroines of the Bible, but fail to heed the admonitions of the Bible, such as those concerning Jesus' return. 

It saddens me to no end that countless people throughout the world continue to fall for false Christs.  I saw a program on the History Channel that showed three different men--one in the Phillippines, one in England and one in Russia--all claiming to be Jesus Christ.

Why are we so easily led astray when scripture clearly states in Matthew 24 beginning at verse 23:
 "Then if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or 'There!' do not believe it. For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect....the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory....He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other."

When Christ returns, He will NOT be born of a woman as He was the first time.  Anyone who is alive on this earth today and claiming to be Jesus Christ was born of a woman.  And, regardless of when any of the false Christs were born, we do not and will not ever be celebrating their birthdays as marking the salvation of the world. 

While scholars continue to dispute the exact date of Jesus' birth, there is no disputing that he was born some 2000 years ago, boldly declared that as the Son of God He would defeat death by resurrecting from the dead, and promised to return on the clouds to reclaim His own.  Jesus is the only one to ever make AND keep such promises. THAT is the joy of Christmas for me and THAT is a birthday and life worth honoring.

BNcouraged!

Rev. Karen

Christmas Presence

In a capitalistic society such as ours, sacred observances are often clouded with commercialism.  Christmas, for example, was originally a celebration of giving--the giving of God's gift to us through the birth of Jesus Christ.  Yet, somehow, it has become focused on getting instead of giving.

Even when we give, we sometimes do so out of obligation more than the desire to be a blessing.  We keep tabs on who gave or didn't give something to us last Christmas so we can return the favor.

We often ask one another, "Are you ready for Christmas?" when what we really want to know is whether you have finished (or started!) your Christmas shopping and if you have put up your Christmas decorations yet.  These questions are not necessarily based on commercialism, but stem from another "c" word--competition.

The pressure is on to deck the halls and fill the malls.  Instead of love, joy and peace we fill our homes with gadgets, gizmos and noise.  We try to outdo our neighbors, and if they won't compete with us, we simply try to outdo ourselves.  A friend of mine recently shared a story of how one man bought the iPhone, iPad, iPod classic, iPod touch, iPod nano and the iPod shuffle before finally exclaiming, "iBroke!" 

For some of us, Christmas day becomes a day to recover from all of the frantic shopping for and shipping of Christmas presents because it is the only day the stores are closed. 

After Christmas day comes the quentessential query, "What did you get (see, there's that key word, "GET" ) for Christmas?"  Instead of listing all of the things you did or did not get for Christmas, try sharing about the Christmas presence.  Tell of how you experienced the power and presence of Jesus Christ in your life over the past year.  Talk about how you helped make it possible for others to experience the presence of Christ.

If you find that you don't have much to talk about, perhaps now is the time to put the right presence on your Christmas list.  The good thing is that you won't have to worry about fighting the crowds at the mall or having it sell out or placed on back order, because the Lord's presence is "not available in stores."  You don't even have to open up your wallet.  All you have to do is open up your heart.

BNcouraged!

Rev. Karen

Go Ahead...Keep Provoking Me!

Sometimes in our daily interactions we unwittingly provoke one another.  We might say a word that seems ordinary to us yet turns out to be a major trigger for someone else.  Other times, we know exactly what we are doing when we provoke someone.  We know which buttons to push and what response to expect.  This is especially true among families. 

Even the youngest siblings know just what to say or do to provoke each other.  It doesn't take long at all for married couples to find one another's buttons.  And, of course, everyone has that one family member who always manages to say or do something that makes everyone want to "throw their hands in the air and wave them like they just don't care!"

The Bible is full of provocative characters, but not all of them were provocative in the negative sense.  Some of them learned the power of positive provoking. Jacob, for example, wrestled with an angel who represented God.  He wrestled with the angel all through the night and boldly declared, "I will not let you go until you bless me!" (Genesis 32:24-29)  Jacob's tenacity and faith provoked a response from God, and he (Jacob) was blessed, indeed.

When I was single and wrestling with whether I should settle for being a girlfriend or wait on God to make me a wife, I decided to stop dating until God sent my husband.  Year one went by.  Year two.  Years three, four and five.  I thought surely I had waited long enough, yet I boldly declared like Jacob, "I will not stop waiting until you bless me!"

I continued waiting through year six and into year seven.  At the end of the seventh year, I met Kendrick Curry the man who would become my husband and partner in ministry.  Evidently, my faith and determination to be blessed provoked such a response from God that he blessed me exceedingly, abundantly above all I could have asked or imagined in a husband and family!

Years ago, an organization I worked for was in a dire financial situation.  Several of my colleagues and I had been told that we would have to be let go.  Without discussing it, we all immediately declared that regardless of pay we would not abandon our positions and would at least see all of our projects through to completion.  Within hours of that declaration, we received a major financial contribution that was more than enough to fund our positions.  We had been laid off and rehired before we could even consider packing our things! A friend of mine characterized this as provoking a response from God--the second time in recent months that someone accused me of provoking God.

Faith pushes God's buttons.  God's Word tells us that "without faith, it is impossible to please God; for he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and [that] he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." (Hebrews 11:6)  The opposite, therefore, also holds true -- with faith it is possible to please God.  When we please God and diligently seek Him, we provoke a response in which He expresses His pleasure.

The fact that God is a rewarder of those that diligently seek Him says to me that God likes us to keep pushing His buttons.  It's as if God is saying to us, "Go ahead...keep provoking me!" Not as a threat, but as a promise.

BNcouraged!

Rev. Karen