Welcome to Wednesday, Samara.
Be aware that this particular Wednesday has never happened before—and will never happen again. It’s good to view it as an opportunity rather than just another piece of mindless time.
I sure face some pressure to perform and achieve today. I have a commitment to a lady to have her big dining table completed and set up in her home to be ready for the big Christmas party she intends to host this Sunday.
Yesterday I finally installed the double-dutch doors on that small pole barn. I’ll stick on a photo.
Hope you have a great day.
Love, Tua.
I think it is extremely important for me to know what I am made of. I’m not so much concerned here with my physical composition as much as with the makeup of my mind and heart. It’s certainly not a bunch of “sugar and spice and everything nice.” But right there is a big decision—perhaps the biggest decision/choice of my life. That is, who am I going to believe has the most accurate view of what I’m made of? Does popular opinion have the right answer? Does the government have the right answer? Does the secular educational system? Does the science of psychology? Left to my own feelings and thinking, do I have the right answer? To be sure, there are a lot of voices out there trying to get me to subscribe to their view. They don’t all agree. And they can’t all be right.
Whereas I reason that there has to be a God—in fact, THERE CANNOT NOT BE A GOD—the evidence is just too obvious and overwhelming—then I also reason that if He designed me and had me made that He would also have the most accurate view of what I am made of. Doesn’t that make sense? It does to me. But something that doesn’t make much sense to me is why this kind of reasoning doesn’t make much sense to most people—until it makes sense what the Sovereign God says all people are made of—including me—including you. And what does God say about that via His Word? “…all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Another diagnosis of God’s view of the natural human heart goes like this: “The heart is deceitful (cannot be trusted) above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).
Wow! So from God’s view, the natural human heart is composed of deception, wickedness, and sin. That doesn’t sound very good. Yet it doesn’t necessarily mean that all people naturally and constantly do wicked and terrible stuff. But when they reject God’s view and His offer of solution, they automatically deceive themselves into thinking they, or someone else, have a better idea—which is the basic definition of SIN. When I accept and believe God’s view as true, suddenly Jesus’ words spoken to Nicodemas in John 3 make wonderful sense—“You must be born again” (John 3:7).
Wow again, Samara! Look how much space I’ve already taken up! And I haven’t even got to talking specifically about the FOCUS VERSE! Let me just say this: Most people who do not accept God’s Word as TRUTH get things up-side-down and backwards. Rather than choosing a TRUTH/BELIEF as a beginning point and making their behavior (lifestyle) conform to that truth, they choose a behavior that they want or feels good and then go shopping for a belief that conforms to their behavior. But, in contrast, the person who really believes that what God says is TRUE (“fears the LORD”), is thereby enlightened and empowered by His Spirit (“born again”) to live pleasing before Him.