Building Ourselves Up

But you, dear friends, carefully build yourselves up in this most holy faith by praying in the Holy Spirit, staying right at the center of God's love, keeping your arms open and outstretched, ready for the mercy of our Master, Jesus Christ. This is the unending life, the real life! (Jude 1:20-21 — The Message)

This is the real life; we immerse ourselves in God, allowing Him to come in and live through us in such a way that it is hard to tell where we end and He begins. He is to be our life, not Him being just a part of our life. This is real life; this is Jesus living through us. This is how we build ourselves up and stay strong, by connecting our hearts with His daily, praying, reading His love letters to us, and most of all listening to what He says to us. All of that is real life. Live the real life daily. Get and stay connected daily with His heart.

Live intentionally, purposely, free and with passion,
Pete Reinbold

Jesus Saves

Jesus and Satan were having an ongoing argument about who was better at using the computer.
They had been going at it for days, and God was tired of hearing all the bickering.
Finally God said , "Cool it. I am going to set up a test which will take two hours and it will judge who does the better job."

So Satan and Jesus sat down at the keyboards and typed away.

They used the mouse.
They did spread sheets.
They wrote reports.
They sent faxes.
They sent E mail.
They sent out E mail with attachments.
They downloaded.
They did some genealogy reports.
They made cards.
They did every known job.

But ten minutes before the time was up, lightning suddenly flashed across the sky, thunder
Rolled , the rain poured, and of course, the electricity went of. Satan stared at his blank screen
And screamed every curse word known in the underworld.

Jesus just sighed.

The electricity finally flickered back on, and each of them restarted their computers. Satan started
Searching frantically screaming, "It's gone! It's all gone ! I lost everything when the power went out!

Meanwhile, Jesus quietly started printing out al his files from the past two hours. Satan observed this and became even more irate. "Wait! He cheated! How did he do it??!"

(You'll love the punch line.)

God just shrugged his shoulders and said:

JESUS SAVES!!!

ComposeEdit HtmlThe Gift We Can Give to God

The Gift We Can Give to God
Article by Tom Gilbert — ©

When we look at all the incredible things God has given us it seems impossible that we could return the favor. True enough. Don't worry, God's not looking for repayment. He gives to us freely and with love. His greatest gift of all, Jesus as the sacrifice for all of our sins and the one who redeems us and brings us fully into a relationship with God, is the springboard for all the other things He gives us. If you love someone then you will want to give to him or her. It's a natural expression of our love. In the case of God what can we possible give? It's the ultimate "what do you give to the one who has everything"? The one great gift that we can give to God is…our self. Totally. Completely. Utterly and without reservation. God wants us to abandon ourselves to Him. That's what He's looking for. He has some big plans for each of us.