LIFE, DEATH & RESURRECTION OF JESUS - TWITTER STYLE !!!

Mathew 28:5,6 “Don’t be afraid, I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here! For He is risen just as He said.”

Hi friends,
As we go through this Season of Lent and commemorate the life, death and the resurrection of our Beloved Lord Jesus Christ, I think there can be no better moment to share this awesome Video I came across very recently. It’s about how the LIFE, DEATH & RESURRECTION of Jesus would have gone around with modern day SOCIAL NETWORKING & TWITTER. Enjoy and be blessed!  

LIFE OF JESUS - TWITTER STYLE!  
 http://youtu.be/XYmOmuW1ysk

We have an awesome God who took our place of suffering & shame on the Cross of Calvary and who rose again on the Third day after having defeated death forever. He continues to live in us His children today. Friend, are you a Follower of this awesome Jesus? If you are already one, may I ask you what have you done today in obedience to the MANDATE that our Lord gave us before ascending into Heaven? Math 28:19 “Wherever you go, make disciples of all nations: Baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

Let us Arise and do our part to share the life story of this amazing Savior who even Death Couldn’t Handle and the Grave couldn’t hold! That’s Our King!

THAT’S MY KING! - DR S. M. LOCKRIDGE

http://youtu.be/yzqTFNfeDnE

Click for related posts  : LESSONS FROM THE HOLY WEEK , THE HUMANITY OF GOD

Have a blessed week!

Take care, God bless,

Sparky Laurie

 

           

HIS LOVE COMPELS US AND HIS BLOOD EMPOWERS US!

2 Corin 5:14 : “For Christ's love compels us. Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life.”

Hi friends,

Just sharing some random thoughts that I penned down. Hope it blesses you!

When we start living a life in accordance with Christ, we may have to encounter problems of a different kind. Many will not be able to understand our sincere earnestness in the Lord. We may be looked down at because we are young. Some may consider our boldness inappropriate for our gender. Others may look at our passion for the Lord as immaturity. Some may question our risk- taking as we step forward to be-friend people in the love of God. Many may not accept our out- of –the- box- thinking. As we step out in faith to obey the promptings of the Holy Spirit, God may call us to do many exploits totally contrary to our nature but if it is Him, we will know. For not only will there be a way but a holy ease as He divinely orchestrates everything down to the last detail so beautifully that we will know that it could not be us but only Him. Some may look at the waves that keep lashing against the boat of our lives and ask us to repent of some unpardonable sin. Others may see our empty pockets and question our faith in His providence. Still others may wonder about our  over-enthusiasm about Jesus & the Church. Others may laugh or mock at us as we dust ourselves after gingerly picking ourselves up from the ground. Some church folks may wrinkle their nose at our radical spirituality and lack of playing by their expectations /rules. Some may unknowingly ridicule us as we limp about due to a thorn in the flesh. We may often be scrutinized/ even slandered behind our backs as we talk with open hearts. We may be excited about things that bore others and bored with things that excite others and this may often cause us to be excluded, rejected or even misunderstood.

And when this happens, we may be tempted to strike back at the injustice or to conform quietly to avoid opposition, or maybe to over –explain. We may even get caught up in the fix-it for you game. Sometimes we may even disqualify ourselves and speak like Jeremiah “Lord, I love you but I am too young for the task.” We may wish we were not a woman but a man so that we would be taken more seriously. We may learn to become more cautious and less expressive of the love of God in our hearts. We may be pressurized to conform and our spirits may be crushed in the process of refusing to do so. Trying to change our unconventional ways may make us less unpopular with man but it surely will curb the flow of the anointing on our lives. As after all our Lord wants us with all of our uniqueness and not carbon copies or clones of perfection! Our hesitation to step out and do the impossible may be fueled not by our lack of faith in Him but by the fear of appearing out of this world both to the world we live in and to ourselves. We may be tempted to downplay our fervor and passion for the Lord when we discover how badly it can turn people off.

And yet the beauty of it all lies in the fact that no matter how hard we may try , we will never be able to let go His call on our lives and all He wants to accomplish through us. Infact, we will always find ourselves eager and overjoyed to do His bidding and will be totally unafraid and unbothered about anything else….and that will ONLY be because HIS LOVE COMPELS US & HIS BLOOD EMPOWERS US.

The Holy Blood of Jesus now becomes everything to us : our RANSOM, our REDEMPTION, our REASSURANCE, our RIGHTEOUSNESS, our RECOVERY, our RESTORATION & our REALITY. Honestly,there is no safer place to be!

Click to enjoy these beautiful songs :

1) WHAT LOVE IS THIS? - KARI JOBE

http://youtu.be/SsgUdVDfaoM

2)STILL BE STILL MY SOUL - DON MOEN

http://youtu.be/nHV_uEGSTXA

Have a blessed week!

Take care, God bless,Sparky Laurie

Poem : TELL THE TRUTH, SHAME THE DEVIL!

TELL THE DEVIL TODAY, HE IS A LIAR!

He will not take your joy, your peace or disturb your spirit.

Tell him he cannot sleep in your bed – there’s not enough cover.

Tell him he cannot sit in your chair – you will not give him a cushion of comfort.

Tell him he can’t touch your body – it’s covered with the blood.

Tell him he cannot audit your finances – you’ve changed accountants.

Tell him he cannot enter your home – the locks have been changed.

Tell him to leave your workplace – he’s not on your list of things to do for today.

Tell him to take his hands off your children – because you’ve had hands laid on them.

Tell him you have no time for his nonsense, criticism or fears – you are on a mission, and you walk by faith.

Tell him no more tears, heartaches, or headaches – because there’s another, He, that restoreth your soul.

Tell him; Tell him; Tell him; Tell him.

Tell him, today, you have a gentle, powerful inner peace within that consumes you and leaves no room for confusion.

Tell him, today you will – respond soothingly to a crying child, a tense spouse, or an impatient friend.

Tell him, today, you will find no fault with a relative, friend, or colleague.

Tell him to leave your tongue alone – for today you will not talk of anyone, before placing God at the beginning of your thought

Tell him, wherever you are, there God Is.

Tell him, God said, “My people will abide in a peaceful habitation…and in quiet resting places.” [Isaiah 32:18]

Today, Tell him he is a liar!!!, Amen.

-Author Unknown

THE GIFT OF PAIN !

2 Corin 7:10, 11 “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. See what great earnestness godly sorrow has produced in you! How ready you are to clear yourselves, how indignant, how alarmed, how full of longing and enthusiasm, how eager to seek justice”.

Hi friends, yesterday I watched the Bollywood movie ROCKSTAR through which God spoke a message to my heart. This may be out of the box thinking for many believers  but I truly believe that  if God really dwells in us, He can speak to us at the most unexpected times and ways and we just need to have an open mind and a pure heart to listen.

In the beginning of the movie, Ranbir who wants to become famous in the music world tries unsuccessfully at it, becoming an object of scorn and mockery of all who know him. Naïve, he sets out undaunted to do whatever it took to make himself a ROCKSTAR. Little did he know what was coming for him when he decides to follow the life changing advice of  his uncle. According to this uncle, Ranbir was an extremely shallow person who was too comfy in life. He advised Ranbir that in order for him to achieve his life ambition, he had to become a man of substance for which he would have to have his heart broken and pass through the sieve of suffering and pain.
The story then revolves around how Ranbir becomes a ROCKSTAR by going through pain of a very different kind. The part that really spoke volumes to me was towards the end when after achieving everything he had always dreamt of, Ranbir is left empty and lost in life. At a very crucial moment, he begs that same uncle [now his Manager] who had advised him earlier; to take away all that he had- fame, name, riches, glory and says I just don’t want all this. Just take pain away from my life. The life of greatness always has a price to pay.

There is a pain we endure when we make wrong choices and have to suffer the consequences but what when you are the innocent victim of certain painful circumstances in life? This is what I mean by Pain of A Different Kind! Many today preach a pain free Christianity; that once you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, there will be no more pain in your life. Nothing can be farther from the truth. Take the example of the great men and women from the pages of the Bible.

Let’s look for a moment at the life of the Apostle Paul. Few of us will ever endure adversity of the kind he had. We read in 2 Corin 11:23-27 that he was imprisoned, whipped,beaten with rods,stoned,ship wrecked repeatedly,in danger from flooded rivers, thieves,Jews, Gentiles,his own people,faced danger in cities,deserts,stormy seas,danger from men who claimed to be Christians but were not,suffered weariness,pain,sleepless nights, hunger,thirst,cold weather,loneliness,burden of leadership etc etc. In addition to all this, we read of some unbearable suffering , a thorn in his flesh that tormented him more than any other hardship for which he repeatedly pleaded with God to take away but the only reply He got was
 2 Corin12:8,9  “My grace is sufficient for you for my power works best in your weakness.”

Another example would be the life of the blessed Mother Mary. Few of us consider the kind of suffering this wonderful woman of God endured. She was with child out of wedlock(Math 1:18).Consider the kind of unexplainable humiliation she had to endure for 9 months, after that it was time to have the baby and she had only a stable because there was no room at the inn in the village(Luke 1:7)Immediately after the baby was born, it was time to flee to Egypt with the newborn as Joseph was warned in a dream by the angel of the Lord.(Math 2:13,14).Then they frantically searched for Jesus at the young age of 12 as He sat in the Temple among the religious teachers discussing Scriptures with them.(Luke 2:48)Later on  we see the heart broken mother watch as her innocent first born is whipped ,beaten, mocked ,disrobed and spit at and watches him  crucified to death. A different kind of suffering that no mother on earth will ever bear again.

Among the many others are John the Baptist who was beheaded, Stephen who was stoned to death and the Suffering Servant, the Man of Sorrows , our Lord Jesus Himself. Heb 5:7 “ While Jesus was here on earth, he offered prayers and pleadings, with a loud cry and tears, to the one who could rescue him from death. And God heard his prayers because of his deep reverence for God.”

The painful experiences of our Christian life is compared to the pruning procedure that the grape plant goes through in order to ensure optimal productivity. The vinedresser “cuts off  the diseased parts of the plant, gets rid of bugs and even cuts away seemingly healthy but unwanted shoots so that the branch can grow stronger in the direction that he desires. From the branch's perspective, being pruned can be uncomfortable, if not painful, and at times also appear to make no sense. But "every branch" (John 15:2) should trust that the vinedresser knows what He is doing and be grateful for His care and attention.”- JustBible.net

 There are 5 Ps that we need to remember when going through the Process of Pain.

1)PRAYER-Sometimes we may not understand why we go through certain trails during certain seasons of our life but we can be assured that our Heavenly Father knows what is best. Even when we don’t understand we need to be in constant conversation with Him honestly telling Him about our pain and confirming our faith in His goodness.

2)PROMISES-There are several promises in the Bible that we can stand on and declare out aloud until and unless we see our breakthrough. Just like Jesus counter-attacked satan with Scripture, we too need to use the powerful word of God. Heb 4:12 “For the word of God is full of living power. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
3)PATIENCE- Many times we just need to exercise self restraint in wanting to make things happen in our way and our time. While we wait patiently, God has promised to fight our battles for us. Psalms 30:5 “Weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning.”

4)PRAISE- While we believe and wait, we can also speed up the waiting process by praising God for the victory that He has already given to us. When we do this, we are declaring our faith in God and there is nothing that annoys satan more than this as by doing so we refuse to react on what we see but in God who we believe. Psalms 57:7-11 “ My heart is steadfast O God, my heart is steadfast. I will sing and make music. I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples. For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies. Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth.”

5)PEACE- There is much power in being able to be filled with peace and behave in a way as if we have already got our answer from God. This pleases God because it proves our faith in His love. Psalms 46:10 : “Be still and know that I am God.”

Dear friend, are you going through some pain/ suffering, some thorn in your flesh that in spite of your obedience to the Lord and walking in love just will not go away?  Friend, let us stop fighting the pain and instead embrace it with the full awareness that we can be joyful and peaceful in spite of  the pain because  it is in our pain that God shouts His love to us!

Click to enjoy these lovely songs!

http://youtu.be/larbuWBZ58k

http://youtu.be/pX0knHZorb0

Have a blessed week!

Take care, God bless,

Sparky Laurie