The Beatitudes Matthew 5:3-12

Matthew 5:12a Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.

The beatitudes can be simply said sublime happiness. How do these teachings of Jesus apply to happiness? They apply to the way life is best lived. Jesus knew that life apart from him is filled with sin and sadness so he told us how to live. The beatitudes are the Christian life put into words. This is the road to happiness or satisfaction in Jesus Christ. They tell us about Christian character which leads to right living.
It is no wonder that Jesus would tell his disciples and us that when you live this way you will be treated poorly by the world around you, but take joy or rejoice for you have pleased your heavenly Father and your reward is in him. Jesus knows his people and what they need to understand life.
This year as we uncover the beatitudes through the “M5 Files” ask your self how does God want me to live or what do I need God to fix in me that I might live out this sublime happiness? What you are going to see is that God knows you inside and out, he knows what you need to be effective in his kingdom. God has a plan for his children so that they would look and live differently than the world.
The beatitudes will open your eyes to the life you have always wanted. They will show you how big and how perfect our God is. Jesus is the best teacher who ever walked the earth, open your hearts and let him show how life is best lived in his grace and mercy.

And so...

What a wonderful way to spend the day after Christmas than to be with the people he came for. It is amazing to me to think about the joy and blessing that come from Christ giving all for me, that he would rescue me and give me everything that kneed for life and godliness. I love how one of the most well know verses in the Bible, John 3:16 gives us the perfect perspective on Christmas. Out of love the father gave. Out of obedience the son came. In udder despair we did not know we need him. Yet he chose to give perfectly.

So as you wake tomorrow or even in 2 Thursdays from now maybe that anticipation of Christmas can still linger because the Father gave.

clarity in discomfort

God has an amazing way to redirect us to himself. I like to think of it as purposeful pain. Now this is not always physical but sometimes emotional or mental. I love when God intervenes in the midst of a mental cloud a funk of sorts and says "ask me i know what to do". So when you are at a loss or feel like your not sure about the issues try to sift through the discomfort of "yourself" and see what God thinks. For me it is a prayerful petition to fix my heart attitude even if i do hurt or am confused. When my heart is bound to the things of God all things can come together for our good and His glory.

Christmas and the messiah

When we think about celebrating christmas we thinking about the coming of the Christ child. I wonder what it would have been like to be apart of israel as they would have hoped for the coming messiah? They would have known he would be great, greater than David and would rule for ever. They would have longed to be rescued from oppression and fear from other nations. They would have been the world power. But this is not why the messiah came. As people living 2000 years after the coming of the messiah we no longer have to hope for his coming we can know the truth that he came. He cam to rescue us from sin and our selves. The messiah has come and he have the joy of celebrating what he has done in us. We can remember what we were when he saved us, what he did in us, and who are based on his amazing love and grace in our lives. As we lead up to Christmas we have the joy and the security the messiah has accomplished what he came for to save a people for himself!

3 things to ask about culture

There is much talk today about culture and what we should do with it. The obvious question to me is to first ask what how do you define the word culture? Is it people, their customs, they sub groups in them? I am not sure that there is one specific way to define culture to make everyone happy, what I do think is that we can work with things in culture and help give ourselves and families better direction.

Here are the three things: first we can accept what culture wants us to give it no thought and continue on ilife with out a care. Second we can reject it, determine that there is nothing good iit at all and run fast fromm it. Third we can redeem it look at it from Gospel perspective to see how the scripture might influence what we do.

I know this very general but when we look at life through a gospel lens it will give us one of these three options. Not everything is bad, or good, or needs to be changed. So let's seek Gods word for how life should be defined and what we see in culture and react to.

Who will be your savior?

The world ( culture) has a way of trying to convince you to believe It will be your savior. From the time we are young it promises hope, if you try hard enough. It promises satisfaction if you give your self to it. The world has been an overwhelming force of false hope, false satisfaction and a false sense of belonging. When the world is done with you it will leave you in the dust, with out a care or worry of your well being.

Jesus came that we would not be lost any longer! Through the blood of Jesus we are satisfied, find hope and belong to the greatest family. The amazing thing is that this is not new news. This is the good news of the last 2000 years! But for whatever reason most likely selfishness we push past what will fill us to what will fail us every time. Jesus never fails never gives up on his people. So who will be your savior the world(culture) or Jesus Christ? Who has your heart?

A mother and the Gospel

Mothering for the Sake of the Gospel

by Jenni Roney



I don’t want to be a good mother. I want to be a great mother. I want to speak sweetly to my children like Marmee in Little Women. I want to perform musical marionette shows with my kids and sew their clothes from drapes like Maria in The Sound of Music. I want to teach my boys to relate to each other like the kids in The Boxcar Children. But in reality, I identify more with the Apostle Paul when he says, “I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out” (Romans 7:18).

As an exercise this week, I made a list of all the things that “good mothers” do. In just 10 minutes, I came up with 75 impossible standards that lurk somewhere in the recesses of my subconscious.

Here are a few of the highlights: A good mother never yells, she has a freezer full of nutritious and frugal meals, her children know all of their Fighter Verses, she exercises daily, her kids would rather read than watch a movie, she gives her children only happy memories and records them in scrapbooks, she makes homemade cookies but never eats them herself, her laundry is always caught up, her babies sleep through the night at six weeks, and her boys always lift the toilet lid.

If you’re a mom, I’m sure your list is as lengthy as mine. And if we were truly honest, we would add a few of our personal convictions about the ways that “good mothers” feed, educate, and discipline their children. Here’s the problem—we are living under a self-imposed law of “Mommy Legalism” that isn’t necessarily biblical. Are we mothering for the sake of our own self-righteousness or mothering for the sake of the gospel?

Unfortunately, we will never measure up to our own imaginary laws of good mothering. And when we fall short, we either condemn ourselves or condemn other moms to make ourselves feel better. But the Old Testament Law existed to show us that we can never keep a high enough standard to please God.

Why are we trying to add extra righteousness through “good mothering” when we are already justified through Christ? Mothers, God is pleased with you because when he looks at you, he sees Christ. And there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ.

Judgmental Whitewashed Tomb Moms do not bring glory to God. But if we can be mothers who understand our own propensity to sin, we will be astonished by and thankful for the grace of God. We can then extend that grace to our sinful children and to other struggling mothers who may hold different convictions, pointing them to our only hope, Jesus Christ.

I think we could shorten our “good mother” lists to one single item: A good mother models the gospel for her children and for other moms. It is a wonderful thing for our children to see our weaknesses to learn that our strength and hope come from the Lord. And it’s not just our children who need to see our moment-by-moment dependence on Christ. Other women need to know that we, too, are imperfect mothers, in need of God’s grace and sanctification.

We need to encourage one another to press on toward the goal through the many challenging seasons of motherhood. We need godly older women and biblical counsel to help us fight the fight of faith. We need to “stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another” (Hebrews 10:24–25)… As imperfect mothers, may we display the gospel to our children as we point them to a perfect Savior.

Mercy Kissys

When a child says something profound do you hear it? My daughter Ashlyn loves chocolate, especially hershey kisses. Two days ago she wanted some but i did not know it. Most of the time my wife or oldest daughter takes care of these minor cravings since they being female know what chocolate is all about. When she asked me for them she kept asking me for some mercy kissys. At first i did not know what she was saying so me thinking logically kissed her and she quickly let me know that was not a mercy kissy. So as any confused father i asked the translator my wife then told me what she was asking for, hershey kisses. Wow what wonderful and cute girl, i am not planning on correcting her.

This got me thinking what are some of the things that we say that need translation. Are communicating Truth in a confusing way. we know what we are saying and we a confident we are right, but do the people who hear us get what we are saying at all. I think i could have known what my daughter was saying if she had shown me what it was she was saying. How do our lives help communicate our message. When was the last time you said something that did not match up to how you live. The Gospel is word and deed/ action and truth. If all you do is talk something is broken. If you are speaking and being misunderstood let your life do the translation.
By the way go have some mercy kissys it will brighten up your day.

Prayer

Prayer.

Luke 11
Mathew 6
What is it about prayer that seems so illusive? Why do most Christians feel that prayer is never as good as it should be?

Prayer is where our life and our God meet. Prayer has been taught for so long as a means of getting and not means of knowing. Relational.
-When we pray we are with the one who loves most purely.
-When we pray we are expressing ourselves to the one who truly gets you.
Prayer is not formal does not need precise words. We like this because it feels ok and better as if we have grown in our maturity as a Christian. What does it look like to come to God the way he describes in scripture, like that of a child?
Children come messy
No pretense
You are the only solution to their problem
They are persistent
Learning to become like a child so that we ask, believe and play (wish and hope) in our prayer. Remember the point of Christianity isn’t to learn a lot of truths so you don’t need God anymore; we are going to grow in our desire and need for more of him.
Prayer is a life long journey my hope is that you will never feel as if you have made it. When we feel like we have made it we tend to feel like “what is next” and move on.
Prayer is where real life is… God wants us to come messy and overwhelmed, he wants our scattered thoughts. He is the only one who can really sort through them any way. I think that prayer like this would help keep marriages out of the counseling offices. Our spouses are not equipped to fix our needs it is not their job. God is the only one who knows you best and has all the tools necessary to handle everything that is on your heart and mind. God speaks your language, he understands you babbling he can sort through the tears the words he knows you best.
So Prayer becomes one of our greatest outlets for being with our heavenly father. Luke 11 becomes for me the passage that shows me my need for him. I know that my heart can try to accomplish a lot. I am good at fixing my problems. I know that I have lots of ways to have my needs met with out prayer. “ Money can do what prayer can and its quicker and less time consuming.”
So how do we pray? We need to pray with our whole lives, our everyday with out fixing ourselves first giving God what he already knows about us.
“If God is sovereign, then he is in control of all the details of my life. If he is loving, then he is going to be shaping the details of my life. If he is all-wise, then he’s not going to do everything I want because I don’t know what I need. If he is patient, then he is going to take time to do all this. When we put all these things together- god’s sovereignty, love and wisdom, and patience- we have a divine story.”
Learning to pray does not offer us a less busy life it offers us a less busy heart. In the midst of outer busyness we have inner quiet. But as we learn to pray as well, we’ll discover that this is my father’s world. Because my father controls everything, I can ask, and he will listen and act. Since I am his child, change is possible- and hope is born.
Pray in the midst of the chaos. As your heart or your circumstances generate problems, keep generating prayers. Pray is not cut and dry and a simple system it is messy and sometimes way out of control just like your life.
If you are going to enter this divine dance we call prayer, you have to surrender your desire to be in control, to figure out how prayer works. You’ve got to let God take the lead.

Prayer Cards-
Prayer journal-
Systems should not cause guilt in us. When we allow them to be a measuring stick to our growth as prayers we have lost the point. Journals and Cards are one way for us to have some sense of remembering the journey God is taking us on.


Thoughts from the book: a praying life, by Paul Miller

walls of defense.

When people begin to crash in on our parade, it tends to cause friction inside of us. We have this ability to raise walls fast and high. Our defensive systems are always on high alert. This is my life and my idea, who are you to treat me and what I am doing with disdain and threaten my happiness. The pride in our hearts is a prime contender for a heavy weight fight. We do not want to lose or be attacked.

The Bible in contrast to our internal battle gives us a clear direction for dealing with these so-called personal attacks. Peter describes us as sojourners, people on a journey. While on our journey not in our homeland we should act with purpose. The Gospel gives us purpose. The Gospel gives us significance in our lives.

1Peter 2:12 Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
1Peter 3:9 Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing.

These two verses give us purpose that God would be glorified and that we would live out the covenant given to Abraham thousands of years earlier. God has given us significance through the name of Jesus; we have an opportunity to love others not with our love but with his love. We were called to live outside of our selves for others in the name of Jesus.

When your parade crashers come flying around trying to bring you down, remember your conduct has to do with what you believe about God and his glory. Will these crashers see Jesus in you?

The Beautiful Monotony of the Gospel

The Beautiful Monotony of the Gospel
Jared C. Wilson

One fear we must put aside in our quest for greater gospel-centrality is that it will not preach week to week. The enemy and our own flesh will test our commitment with the “plausible argument” (Col. 2:4) that the gospel will just sound so one-note. We are tempted to think the repetition will have the unintended effect of boring people or making the gospel appear routine and commonplace.

But the gospel is resilient. It is miraculously versatile. It proves itself every day for those awake to it. Because it is the antidote for all sin of all people, power effectual for every type of person no matter their background or circumstance, it is God’s might to save every millisecond and therefore every Sunday.

The gospel is indeed one song. But it is a song with many notes. The news is the same, but some of the words may change and the angles shift. (Use a thesaurus if you have to.) If we are awake to the gospel and seek the wakefulness of others, Christian and non-Christian, the playing of the greatest song at every instance is a lot like the exuberance of childlike wonder in monotonous fun. In Orthodoxy, the great G.K. Chesterton writes:

“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, ‘Do it again’; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, ‘do it again’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”

When we “get” the gospel for what it really is — the power to save, the most thrilling news there could be, the declaration that God’s Son died for us and then came back to life! to be the risen Lord and supreme King of the universe, not just the entry fee for heaven but the currency for all of life — we revel in the new creation it unleashes in its wake at every turn. We never get tired of hearing it. It’s the new song that never gets old. “Play it again, play it again!” we will cry.

Gospel wakened people have been given the strength enough to exult in the beautiful monotony of the gospel.
The further good news is that those who are dulled in their senses will not be further dulled by the gospel. In fact, only the gospel can deliver them from their dulled state. No amount of fog and lasers will do it.

Story.

"Normally when we read stories like Homers the Odyssey , we suspend our disbelief and enter its world for a time. We emerge on the other side, exit the story and its world, and resume our daily lives. Hopefully we have learned something or been entertained or enriched in some way by the story, receiving something we can take into our ‘real’ world. It is not that way with the biblical story; we are to remain in its world, find the meaning of our lives there, and fit our lives into its structure of universal history; it claims to be the real world." Michael Goheen

What story are you living; the one that escapes reality or the one God has given to you?