Lemonade

“When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” 

BY TAYLOR JOHNS 

We all know this saying, and its meaning is very simple: Make the most of what you have. This makes sense in a materialistic world, but what about a spiritual one? What if we thought about Christianity this way? How can we? And what will happen?

One thing I would like for us to consider is that every breath we breathe, every sunrise in the morning, and every time the seasons change, we are reminded that we have a new chance…. a new opportunity. There is a song we sing sometimes that says, "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is Thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion says my soul. Therefore, I will hope in Him!" This song is a direct quotation from Lamentations 3:22-24

If you know anything about the book of Lamentations you know that it was written by the prophet Jeremiah. He was often referred to as the weeping prophet. Sounds like a guy we need to listen to if we want to know how to make lemonade. Jeremiah says that when the difficult times come, we need to focus on the steadfastness and faithfulness of God. Why would he say that? Probably, because in his experience, he knew that people would let him down. But God would NEVER let him down. The Bible confirms this in Matthew 28:20 and in Hebrews 13:5 among many other places. 

Paul understood this. Peter understood this. So did James and John, the beloved. But, the question is…. do you believe it? Do you really believe that God will be with you? That He will never leave you or forsake you? The problem is not the steadfastness and faithfulness of God, it is our faith in him. We are the ones that struggle.

How we spend our time on Earth is the most important thing. Let’s elaborate a little. 

Solomon says, "To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven: 

A time to be born, And a time to die; 

A time to plant, And a time to pluck what is planted; 

A time to kill, And a time to heal; 

A time to break down, And a time to build up; 

A time to weep, And a time to laugh; 

A time to mourn, And a time to dance; 

A time to cast away stones, And a time to gather stones; 

A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing; 

A time to gain, And a time to lose; 

A time to keep, And a time to throw away; 

A time to tear, And a time to sew;

A time to keep silence, And a time to speak; 

A time to love, And a time to hate; 

A time of war, And a time of peace." (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8) 

Okay, so we know there is a season and a time for everything, but what is the conclusion? He tells us in Ecclesiastes 12:13, "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, For this is man's all." The single most important bit of wisdom Solomon could impart to us is NOT to get wrapped up in the season. Forget about it. Even if it's RAINING LEMONS, we just have to understand that its LEMON SEASON. Time to do something about it. Make some lemonade. We could be sour. But, what would that accomplish? Nada. Zip. Zilch. Nothing. It would be useless, or as Solomon would call it VAIN!

So, how do we relate this to our spiritual life? First of all, let us think about the blessings God gives us every day. These blessings are our lemons. James 1:17 says, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning." And, don't miss that the second and third verses of his letter also say, "My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience."

James learned the secret recipe to making lemonade. It’s the same secret that Jeremiah shared with his readers. Trusting in God! He gives the best gifts. We can see them as lemons. Or we can see them as blessings. We know one thing for sure. He loves us. John 3:16 tells us that. And, we know that if we are in Christ, Ephesians 1:3 also reminds us that we have great blessings. Even greater than anyone else in the world.

James encourages his readers to change their perspective. So, that is what I want to challenge us to do. How many times a day do we just sit down, and say, “God, I want YOU to work through me. Show YOUR light to others through me.” Do we ever pray things like this? Probably not. Because we aren't thinking like James or Jeremiah. Two men that have "J" names. Or, what about Job? He did well by staying focused even when his friends and his wife turned against him. And, what about Jesus! He is the perfect example, isn't he?

Do we ever use ourselves for the glory of the One who saved us all? James 1:22 tries to

encourage us to do that. Don't just hear the word! Live it! Become a living example of the Word of God. Become a doer that bears fruit! As Christians, we know the greatness of God

but our unlucky counterparts do not. They need to see Christ in us. Will you do this? Will you make some lemonade? Let's work on it, until Jesus comes! 

Peace

O faithless and perverse generation

"O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to Me.” And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him; and the child was cured from that very hour. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you - Matthew 17:17-20 

Peace

What kind of heart do you have?

Hummingbirds have race car hearts that eat oxygen at an eye-popping rate. Their hearts are built of thinner, leaner fibers than ours. Their arteries are stiffer and more taut. Their hearts are stripped to the skin for the war against gravity and inertia, the mad search for food, the insane idea of flight.

They are tiny little birds and their hearts beat 10 times a second. So even if you put your huge ear to its chest, it would be hard to discern the heartbeat. 

The price of their ambition is a life closer to death; they suffer more heart attacks and aneurysms and ruptures than any other living creature. It’s expensive to fly. You burn out. You fry the machine. You melt the engine. 

The biggest heart in the world is inside the blue whale. It weighs more than seven tons. It’s as big as a room. It is a room, with four chambers. A child could walk around it, head high, bending only to step through the valves. The valves are as big as the swinging doors in a saloon. This house of a heart drives a creature a hundred feet long. 

Every creature on earth has approximately two billion heartbeats to spend in a lifetime. You can spend them slowly, like a tortoise and live to be two hundred years old, or you can spend them fast, like a hummingbird, and live to be two years old.

What kind of heart do you have? Is it beating to the rhythm of songs of praise to God? for eternity? Or is your pulse set to the city, the job, the constant striving for possessions and property, the ways of the world?

Peace

And we have conquered

"And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death." Revelation 12:11

Peace

Forth as Gold

“I SHALL COME FORTH AS GOLD”

Text: Job 23:1-17  W. Max Alderman

I. THERE IS COURAGE IN WHAT Job said: “he knoweth the way that I take” (v. 10).
A. Job believed that God was around even though he could not see him… (v. 9).
B. He believed that God was aware of him even though he could not touch him… (V. 9).

II. THERE IS CONSIDERATION IN WHAT Job said, “when he hath tried me”
A. His trials would not cause him to waver… (V. 11).
B. His trials would help him to worship Him… (V. 12).

III. THERE IS CONFIDENCE IN WHAT Job said, “I shall come forth as gold.” (V. 10)
A. He knew that he would be made better. (V. 14)
B. He certainly would not be made bitter. (V. 16).

CONCLUSION: Sometimes the Lord allows trials to come to us to teach us… Sometimes they come to toughen us and sometimes to make us more tender. Yet, when God allows it to be so, it is for us to come forth as gold. 

Peace

The call to fly

THE CATERPILLAR JOURNEY

"The caterpillar is the most confused creature which roams the planet, because undoubtedly stamped in his soul is the call to fly." 

Caterpillars must go through four stages before their metamorphosis is complete. They begin as eggs, next they hatch as caterpillars, then they go through a stage where they eat, and eat, and eat some more. Eventually, they become a chrysalis before the transformation is complete and they can finally emerge as a beautiful butterfly.

The Bible tells us in Ecclesiastes 3: 1 "To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven." Often, we want to walk straight into the calling God has for us. We want to do and be everything God wants us to be and not only that, but we want to skip the journey that takes us there and do it NOW! We want to go from being caterpillar eggs to butterflies! However, we all know that there are risks to anything being born prematurely. In order for anything to be birthed, whether it is a vision or a calling, we who are to fulfill it must go on a journey. We must go through stages and seasons of preparation. 

For weeks, our class would observe the caterpillars I had ordered. We would begin to notice that each day they would crawl to the top of the aquarium and stand upside down. It was as though they were saying "Is today the day? Is today the day my transformation will begin?" When they realized it wasn't, they would walk back down and eat the day away. Every morning upon returning to the classroom, we would always be amazed at how much the caterpillars had grown. 

Sometimes our lives can reach a point where they seem routine and mundane. Like the caterpillars, we are walking up and down, up and down. We may feel bored with where we are, like God has forgotten us, or as though we are not accomplishing much with our lives. We go through the day wondering. Is this the day? If we find it's not, our response should be like the caterpillars. It's not the day, but God has promised it, so I'm going to prepare for it nonetheless! We should eat, and eat, and eat from the Word of God. We should spend daily time in prayer and worship. We should be building, preparing, and strengthening our spirit man to accomplish the things which God has stamped on our souls to do.

After about two weeks, we would usually come to class one morning to find that many of the caterpillars had formed a chrysalis. From the outside of the chrysalis, it always seemed to my students as though nothing were happening. After a while, they would lose interest in the chrysalis. It wasn't fun to watch, and it wasn't spectacular to look at. 

I'm convinced that like the caterpillar, God wants to take us on a journey. I'm convinced there is a process. Job said "For He knows the way that I take, and when He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold." Sometimes there is pain in the process. Sometimes the journey is difficult, but God knows and sees exactly where you are. When others look and see an ugly cocoon, He looks inside and sees the beautiful creature that is being transformed. Before David became king of Israel, he was first a shepherd boy. Some of his brothers were more handsome than him and greater in stature, but God did not choose them. In the Bible God spoke in 1 Samuel 16: 7 concerning David "for the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." God chose the young, ruddy shepherd boy who had a heart after Him. All those years David spent alone in the field, God was preparing him. Don't despise the cocoon. God may simply be waiting for your character to catch up with your calling. 

It is in the difficult process of breaking out of the chrysalis that the butterfly becomes strong. However, if the caterpillar breaks its way out of the cocoon prematurely, he will never survive. His wings will not be developed enough to allow him to properly fly. God does not want us to simply arrive at our calling, He desires for us to be successful in it. You may be a caterpillar with the word 'butterfly' stamped on your forehead wondering "When is it going to happen?" Consider this thought.is it possible that you have yet to visit the cocoon? If you're having trouble waiting for the moment that you break out into your calling, just remember. "He has made everything beautiful in HIS time." (Ecclesiastes 3: 11)

Peace

Reveal the honey

A man placed two identical jars on the table next to the pulpit. He quoted 1 Samuel 16:7

"The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart."

   "These jars came from the same factory, were made of the same materials, and can hold the same amount. But they are different," he explained. Then he upset one and it oozed out honey. He turned over the other, and vinegar spilled out. 

"When a jar is upset, whatever is in it comes out. Until the jars were upset, they looked alike. The difference was within, and could not be seen. When they were upset, their contents were revealed. Until we are upset we put on a good front. But when we are upset, we reveal our innermost thoughts and attitudes, for 'out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.' - Luke 6:45

What if someone tipped you over today? What would flow out?
Would you reveal the "honey" of grace and patience, or the "vinegar" of anger?

"Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins." - 1 Peter 4:8

"The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart."
ps. Sometimes the ones who upset you may be just looking for some honey - Don't give them vinegar!

Peace

Zealous for Justice

Dear Saint Anthony, you were prompt to fulfill all justice. You gave God and His creation the service He required from you. You respected other people's rights and treated them with kindness and understanding. Saint Anthony, Zealous for Justice, teach me the beauty of this virtue. Make me prompt to fulfill all justice toward God and toward all creation. Help me also in my pressing needs. [name them] Franciscan Mission Associates.

Peace

God is Just!

2 Thessalonians 1:6-9

God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.

Peace

By faith

2 Corinthians 5: 6-10

Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. For we live by faith, not by sight.  We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.

Peace

Via, Veritas, Vita

Via, Veritas, Vita is is a Latin phrase meaning "The Way, The Truth, The Life"

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." John 14:6

Peace

Stop, ask, and listen.

A woman sees a father shopping with a fussy two-year-old in his grocery cart. “Be patient, Billy,” he whispers. “You can handle this, Billy. It’s okay, Billy.”

The woman said to him, “I don’t mean to interrupt your shopping, but I just had to tell you how wonderfully loving and patient you are with little Billy.”

The man replied, “Actually, my son’s name is Patrick. My name is Billy.”

The Spirit is available to whisper to us thoughts of love and joy and peace and patience every moment of our life. Right now. All we have to do is stop, ask, and listen.

Peace

A need indeed

If God does not enter your kitchen, there is something wrong with your kitchen.  If you can't take God into your recreation, there is something wrong with your play. 

We all believe in the God of the heroic.  What we need most these days is the God of the humdrum, the commonplace, the everyday. 

Peace

The ministry of the night

"And you will also learn, probably to your astonishment, that it is possible to live in all good conscience before God and men and still feel nothing of the "peace and joy" you hear talked about so much by immature Christians. How long you continue in this night of the soul will depend upon a number of factors, some of which you may be able later to identify; while others will remain with God, completely hidden from you. The words "The day is thine, the night also is thine" will now be interpreted for you by the best of all teachers, the Holy Spirit; and you will know by personal experience what a blessed thing is the ministry of the night. But there is a limit to man's ability to live without joy. Even Christ could endure the cross only because of the joy set before Him. The strongest steel breaks if kept too long under unrelieved tension. God knows exactly how much pressure each one of us can take. He knows how long we can endure the night, so he gives the soul relief, first by welcome glimpses of the morning star and then by the fuller light that harbingers the morning."
A. W. Tozer, from the book "That Incredible Christian"

Peace

From everlasting to everlasting.

1 Chronicles 29:10-13

David praised the Lord in the presence of the whole assembly, saying,

“Praise be to you, Lord,
    the God of our father Israel,
    from everlasting to everlasting.

Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power
    and the glory and the majesty and the splendor,
    for everything in heaven and earth is yours.
Yours, Lord, is the kingdom;
    you are exalted as head over all.

Wealth and honor come from you;
    you are the ruler of all things.
In your hands are strength and power
    to exalt and give strength to all.

Now, our God, we give you thanks,
    and praise your glorious name.

Peace

Inhale/Exhale

Breathing is equal parts exhaling and inhaling. You can't inhale without exhaling. Likewise, you cannot exhale very long before inhaling.

I wonder if prayer is like that - equal parts exhaling and inhaling. The Scriptures are filled with people who exhaled, people who, from the depths of their souls, spoke words of honesty to God. Frustration. Doubt. Anxiety. Anger. Joy. Sorrow. Pain. Disappointment. Hope. Fear. Dreams. Brokenness. Just take some time to read through Psalms and you'll see these kinds of emotions and many more. Historically, the people of God knew one thing for certain: God is big enough for our emotions, good or bad. He knows about them anyway, so why not tell Him honestly?

The Scriptures are also filled with people who inhaled, people who sought for the Creator God to fill them with His presence, His goodness, with peace and wholeness. They sought God to fill their beings with His, to allow His Spirit to dwell with theirs. By inhaling, they were seeking to have their lives be more in rhythm with the way and life of God.

Take a few minutes today to breathe, really breathe. Allow yourself to inhale and exhale, to pray to God your Creator.

What do you need to exhale to God? What do you need to inhale?

Peace