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Jesus said to His disciples: “Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come. Luke 17:1

The Bible, God’s Word, is very clear: If you believe Jesus is the resurrected Son of the One True God, know God is loving and Holy, and your sins are forgiven, then your behavior must show it.  Actions are the evidence of one’s true heart and a strong influence on those seeking answers, or struggling with temptation. The believer is called to be a light of hope guiding others through the storms of pain and sorrow and down the straight and narrow road of righteousness.

In this same passage of scripture Jesus commands that we forgive others, over and over and over. If we are to be Christ’s witness, then our testimony begins with forgiveness. The first step in a sinner’s new birth is forgiveness. This abstract, illogical act is in complete and total contrast to this world and its agenda.  God is the source of justice and condemnation, but He is doing everything possible to bring about forgiveness and reconciliation, so this must start with His Body, the church and its people. Be forgiving, extend grace, strengthen and guide one another so that all may know the Love of Christ.

Love,

Gretchen

By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. Hebrews 11:3

There was nothing, and then there was something.

This is the beginning of the universe and linear time. Creation occurred at the Word of a God that always was and always will be. Was it a big bang that is still expanding, or just a beautiful wonder placed immediately by God’s hand? It doesn’t matter because, He alone is the maker of all things. There is beauty, order and wonder amid logic contrasted against the unexplainable, all wrapped up in the place we call home. Do not be threatened by one thing that is definable and another that is not. God did it, and that is enough. It’s not a weakness of intellect, but a strength of character to be certain that God can and did.

Hebrews twelve reads like a roll call for Faith’s Hall of Fame. While we struggle with the daily things that challenge our spiritual resolve, this epistle writer has given us the testimony and evidence of the reward awaiting the faithful, who know beyond doubt that God did do all things and still can and will.

Happy Friday,

Gretchen

“For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Genesis 3:5-6

This is the fall of man, our eternal doom. Satan does not take “No,” for an answer. This serpent boldly approached Eve with an invitation that was turned down. Eve repeated God’s command. Satan responded by questioning a given fact and manipulating semantics and theology, then he went for man’s simplest needs and pleasure. The fruit was pretty, tasteful and nourishing for both mind and body.  He made sin look like man’s best hope! He threw our Loving Creator into the role of liar and selfish dictator and introduced a craving to be God’s equal. This was not truth it was death……………….for you and for me.

Thankfully this story is not the end of man’s history. Satan hates God and as God’s crowning creation, he hates us by association. Did you hear me? Satan hates you! He leaves those he attacks, naked and afraid. God clothes and comforts.

Temptation is very personal. Universally we all fall short of God’s glory but God sent His Son to die for the sins of the world. Within this there is a very intimate love extending to you personally.

Satan’s small victory is not the end of your story. The ultimate mission of evil is to illuminate the option of love. That will never happen because the very definition of God is Love.  Love wins the day…….everyday!

Fly the W!

Gretchen 

What is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor. You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet: Psalm 8:4-6

This is a familiar and beautiful Psalm written by David as he ponders the wonders of the universe and feels small beneath the heavens. He is in awe and praises God because He placed His own glory on man when He created Him in His own image.

As small as we are in the whole order of an infinite space and time, God loved us and put all His creation under our feet.  We have authority, better defined as responsibility to stewardship and love.  Yes, we have rights, but are the many things we can do, correct and productive to God’s plan for us and our fellow man?

Man’s authority, given by God, was meant to be our greatest strength, a power to overcome and defeat our foe, Satan. We are God’s crowning creation, His breath, His love. Be strong and courageous, your Father has you covered!

Feelin’ Sassy,

Gretchen

I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in Heaven. Luke 10:19-20 

Jesus sent out seventy-two disciples to go before Him and minister in every town He was about to visit. They had directions for success and rejection, social behavior and financial maintenance. They returned to Jesus, amazed at the power they were able to employ.

In creation, God gave man authority, or dominion, over every living thing. Stewardship is another translation meaning responsibility for something that does not belong to you. In this, God gave Adam power over Satan. The serpent challenged God’s authority and Adam caved at an astronomical cost. 

Adam’s mistake does not mean our failure is inevitable.  We are like Adam because we have a free-will, but we also have the same God-gifted supremacy over Satan’s ploys, no matter how crafty. Use your words! They are your power, and then put your words to action with your hands and feet. 

Our power is in God, not ourselves. Our victory and the greatest hint of Satan’s eventual, complete and total annihilation is his loss to Heaven’s love and your faith.

Blessings,

Gretchen

The LORD said, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.” Genesis 4:10

Sin entered the world and changed man’s relationship with God, but from the very beginning God provided a means of atonement shown by the sacrifice Abel presented. Cain made an offering also, but it was unacceptable to God. His bitter resentment festered and eventually he took vengeance upon his brother, mankind’s first murder.

Blood speaks.  God knew what Cain had done and why he did it. The cries of Abel’s blood spoke death, an irreversible state.  Cain’s choices and his consequences were death, complete and total disconnection from God. 

Living blood, pulsing through our bodies, provides and sustains all we need to live. In contrast, blood spilled is death. In Jesus we find both a sacrifice of blood poured and a continuing source of life. He did not die. He lived!

Like Abel, Jesus was hated and murdered, but when His blood speaks, it says, “I love you and you can live!”

Happy Monday!

Gretchen

To serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you “What do theses stones mean?” Tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the Ark of the Covenant of the LORD. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever. Joshua 4:6-7

(Forty years earlier) The Red Sea was an ominous barrier between the pursuing army of Pharaoh, and freedom for the Hebrew children. The people were terrified, but the Creator of all things drove a strong east wind, pushed the impassable water out of the way, made a dry path on the seabed for His people and when the Egyptians pursued the waves swept over them. The man who thought he was a god lost his army. This is what happens when the Almighty God hems you in on all sides.

Forty years later, a generation has come and gone and this young nation has learned that God is faithful and they must trust and obey Him only. It is time to enter the Promised Land, but there is another aquatic obstacle between the Hebrew children and their homeland; the Jordan River, swollen with spring snow melt. But, God was already there making a way. Several miles upstream an earthquake loosed rock that dammed the river making a dry place downstream.  Before the river banks refilled, Joshua had a representative from each of the twelve tribes retrieve river stones so an altar could be erected to remind the following generations what God had done. Why? Because we need to remember and KNOW that God will always protect and provide for those who follow Him!

As time whisks by, the excitement and crisp edged details of the miraculous things God does for us dulls to occasional thoughts and gentle smiles. It takes deliberate action to remember and retell so that those who come behind us will persevere.

Happy Weekend,

Gretchen

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.Isaiah 5:20

Isaiah chapter 5 refers to Israel as a vineyard. For centuries God has cared for His covenant nation. Rather than follow and obey, they became entitled, greedy and full of injustice. The rich became rich at the expense of the poor. Finally, God withdraws his protection. Israel withers, suffers and ceases to exist as a nation except as refugees, captives and exiles.

The attitude of entitlement brings us to the point of preempting God’s authority over good and evil. We want self glory, and autonomy. Money grants power……until we die….then we’re all equal in our speed of decay. Injustice follows greed. Serving others shifts to serving financial domination. Right and wrong get blurred by bias, personal agenda and passion.

With an open heart we must seek God’s Holiness. A pure heart waits for God’s provision and seeks His approval only.

Love,

Gretchen

Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.” Matthew 16:16

Outgoing, impulsive Peter, who sometimes said the wrong thing, got this right. Peter’s spiritual connection to God in Heaven was the means to his faith on earth. Jesus had not announced Himself as God’s Son publicly, yet, Peter knew.

Petra is the Greek word for rock. Jesus gave Simon, son of Jonas, this name, Peter. It was on the rock of this revelation, Jesus is the Son of the living God, that our church is built. In verse 18 of this same chapter, Jesus says, the gates of Hades will not overcome ‘it’. It is Zion, the city of God, the church triumphant, the Body of Christ. Gate keepers control the city, everything from commerce to politics. They also keep enemies out and let in those who will prosper them. The Truth that Peter confessed is; Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life, The Son of God, is the gatekeeper of the Body of Christ.

We live in fear of being ruined, disappointed, irrelevant, rejected, but Jesus is the Messiah and the Gates of Hell will NOT overcome any us whose hope is in the LORD.

Love,

Gretchen

By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son. Hebrews 11:17

The promise God made, and the reciprocal commitments Abraham returned, define the infinite, omniscient and omnipresent character of the Creator of all things and His intimacy with mankind. Abraham and God entered into a covenant relationship. They didn’t just meet and shake hands, they did things that mattered and would always remind us of God’s mountain moving love. An exchange of first born sons is part of covenant making. So, God asked Abraham for the son He had given Sarah and her husband in their post child bearing years. 

Obedience was the promise Abraham returned to God. When God called, Abraham answered and from that moment forward, Isaac was as good as dead to him, but it was a long walk up the mountain.  Isaac asked, “Where is the sacrifice father?” Abraham replied, “God will provide.”  God did furnish a sacrifice and it was not Isaac. The covenant was sealed. Many thousand years later, God gave His only Son to complete this blessing to all who would believe.

Faith is not a moment in time. It is a life’s choice to never turn back. God didn’t need to know Abraham was ‘all in’, Abraham and Isaac did and we needed to know the end of the story. Obedience, faith in action, won! And it always will. The end.

Love,

Gretchen