{ Dying Muscles}

People who love to exercise (and I’m guessing here) often start the day:

  • Running or Working Out
  • Hydrating
  • Eating protein for growth and power.
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I am a Christian.
I’m fueling up and getting ready to exercise —
I’m going to exercise my “dying muscles.”
Today, I’m going to do what is harder than a marathon and more challenging than an Iron Woman race.
By the grace and power of God, I’m planning to die to myself.
This feat requires a morning run in prayer.
It takes Growth Food to give me power.
It takes starting every day reminding myself with the basics: “I am a Christian. This is what Christians do.”
It takes gumption and a whole lot of grace to exercise the dying muscles.
It’s easier to sit, veg, and morph into what is around me.
It requires supernatural strength to:
  • Die to myself and put others first.
  • Train my tongue muscles to obey me.
  • Keep running the Christian race.
  • Press on in my marriage.
  • Shun selfishness.
  • Look around and do unto others.
  • Love, love and love til it hurts.
I’m getting ready to die today to self-wishes and sin-centered choices.
Perhaps –like exercise– it gets easier the more I do it.
It won’t make me famous — only God will know.
Today, I’m going to do what is harder than a marathon and more challenging than an Iron Woman race.
In the grace and power of God, I’m going to exercise my dying muscles.
 
“I die every day!  What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus?  if the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.”
Wake up from your drunken stupor, as is right, and do not go on sinning…”
I Corinthians 15:31-34
 
Photo credit:  Bradley Wentzel

{ Love Doesn’t Jangle }

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L ove doesn’t jangle — noisily drawing         attention

O r pleasing & praising self…instead–

V olleying kindness toward others, it’s not rude, arrogant or resentful,

E ven when others offend.

 

from 1 Cor. 13.

Word prompt of the day: JANGLE

Photo: painted canvas “Love One Another” created by Yankee Belles Vintage Farm Store

Jangle“>

{ H e R i T a G e }

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Heritage — it’s a rich, sad word.

This word reminds me that people live and die. They pass on good and bad to their children.

Some of my favorite thoughts about heritage come from the Bible. It’s a book about heritage. It’s a book that contains historical facts and verifiable prophecies fulfilled.

It’s a book of underdogs, surprises, and irony.

Rahab was a prostitute. Her heritage was headed in one direction, until God interrupted her path and placed her in the prestigious line of Jesus’ birth.

There are many true accounts like this in the pages of scripture.

But– I confess– the one I think most about is me and my heritage.

I was headed in one direction, and one day, God interrupted that path. He changed me. He didn’t just  tweak my life, or urge me to complete a self-help course. He raised me from my spirit-deadness and changed me like the caterpillar turns into a butterfly. In the cocoon, the caterpillar completely liquifies. It doesn’t emerge merely dressed up like a fancy version of the old creature.

It’s a totally new creation.

This is the heritage I want to pass on to my children:

It is the living who give thanks to You, as I do today. A mother tells her sons and daughters about God’s faithfulness. –taken from Isaiah 38:19

The words that God commands me today shall be on my heart. I will teach them diligently to my sons and daughters. I will talk of them when I sit in my house, and when I walk, before I sleep and when I wake up. — taken from Deuteronomy 6:5-7

The heritage of ME will be imperfect. But by God’s grace, I will also pass on the heritage of faith. Each child will have the opportunity to grab hold of this inheritance.

It’s a legacy of faith in an eternal, loving God.

It’s an inheritance that will never fade away– even after I am gone.

“Is there any God like you? You forgive my sins. You pass over transgressions by the survivors who are your heritage. You are not angry forever, because You delight in gracious love.”

 – taken from Micah 7:18

Photo: Mother’s Day 2017

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/photo-challenges/heritage/

 

~ Lisa