Day 353: That's Life: Series (Part 1)

Ecclesiastes 3:12-13

So I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can. And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from God.

Ecclesiastes 8:15

So I recommend having fun, because there is nothing better for people in this world than to eat, drink, and enjoy life. That way they will experience some happiness along with all the hard work God gives them under the sun.

This is the start of another series leading to the end of the year. This series we are going to talk about life and uno the teachings that we have been taught for so long, that allows us or makes us see life one way and one way only. We often talk about how pain and suffering is a part of life. But as much as they are so is joy, peace, love, happiness, life is good too. We need to talk about that a bit more than we talk about all the bad things that can come out of life. Life can be rough but that is not all there is to it.

As humans we have become so overtaken with this idea of struggling through life. Fighting against something our entire lives to get to where we are. Proving that we are strong because we’ve been through something. People actually say that until you’ve experienced hardship you haven’t experienced life. We have become what seems like obsessed with the ideas of struggle. The more we’ve gone through the better the testimony. We have misconstrued what life really is. We have taught our children and we have been taught that life is a struggle. Life is hard. Prepare ourselves. Have tough skin. But what if I told you that that was wrong. What if I told you that struggling is only a small part of life compared to good. Pain is only a moment compared to the joy and happiness.

There is just as much peace as there is violence and evil. It’s in us. We have to change our perspective. Not of what we see but how we see things. We have to choose to hang on to that glimmer of hope. Life isn’t all struggle and pain. Trust me it’s not. For the moments when the pain and struggles ceases, why can’t life be butterflies and unicorns? Why can’t we enjoy life to fullest. There’s no one telling us we can’t .Life is beautiful. Life is a gift. Life is a blessing. Witnessing life is a privilege. 

There’s so much more to this life than that we overlook, because when we think about real life we only think about how hard it is. How brutal it can be. How it can chew us up and spit us out. Real life is actually beautiful and full of joy and love when we think about it. Real life is laughing with your friends until the break of dawn. Real life is taking a chance and going on that date with that person. Real life is the thrill of throwing your hands up on a roller coaster. Real life is watching your friends and family succeed and being just as happy for them as you would for yourself. It’s being able to travel across the world to climb a mountain or taste real Italian food. Real life is building up the courage to ask that girl to marry you. It’s being overwhelmed with emotion because you are so happy. Life is sharing moments, the beautiful moments the joyful moments. Life is seeing the smile on the face of someone you love because they've just accomplished something they've been going after for a while. It's seeing you prayers for people come to fruition. Life is all the little moments strung together to make up what we get to describe as living. Life is being vulnerable enough not to just cry when you’re in pain, but to cry because you are happy. Life is not being ashamed to walk down the street holding hands with your best friend because you are grateful God has blessed you with them. Life is telling your family and friends you love them. Life is hugging your family or friends. Or hugging the stranger with the free hugs sign. This may sound crazy to many of you.It sounds crazy to me as I write it. Because we have been conditioned and taught that life is hard. We’ve been trained to be tough so life doesn’t knock us down. We’ve been told since we were young kids in school that life is hard and it can get the best of us. But I want to undo all of that and tell you that you will get the best of life. It will not get the best of you.  

All this to say, we weren't prepared for the beauty of life, or the joys of life, because we've only been conditioned to be tough so that life can't knock us done. With that being said we don't really know how to enjoy life, we don't know how to relax or take a break because we want to be ahead of the game. I want to encourage your day to take a chance and see that there si more to life that being in a constant battle. God did not intend for us to struggle every moment of our lives. Believe or not He actually wants us to enjoy life. He gave us the pleasures of life to enjoy, give yourself permission to enjoy it. 

Reflection 

1. What is your perspective on life?

2. Do you find yourself constantly in the pattern of thinking of life as only a struggle?

3. What are some things you can do to change that perspective?

4. Are you rally living life to the fullest?

Prayer Time 

Allow you answer to the above questions guide your prayer today. Take the time to talk to God about life and thank Him for blessing us with a beautiful life. 

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 354!

Day 244: Not Everything is Everlasting

Ecclesiastes 3:1

For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven.

Revelation 3:7

Write this letter to the angel of the church in Philadelphia. This is the message from the one who is holy and true, the one who has the key of David. What he opens, no one can close; and what he closes, no one can open:

I know many of us have heard these two scriptures a multitude of times, and I want to talk about them today. I want to talk about the fact that not everything in our lives are meant to last. Not everything is forever or everlasting, no matter how much we want it to be. Sometimes God closes doors in our lives to open others. Sometimes people walk out of our lives or relationships fade because they were only meant to be there for a season. We must learn to realize and honor these moments. I feel as humans we hold on so tight to things that we won’t even let our hands open to God. Sometimes we hold onto things so tight, not wanting to let go while at the same time not realizing, trusting or understanding that God has something greater in store. Sometimes He needs our hands to be empty in order to fill them completely. Sometimes as humans we are so hesitant to let go of a good thing because we don’t know when it’s going come around again. We are afraid because we are not trusting that God has something greater. We are not trusting in Him, His timing or His word. God always has something greater for us, we just have to trust Him. We have to trust His process.

With that being said, sometimes God closes doors, and no matter how hard we try we cannot open them. This does not mean God is punishing us, all it means is, either it’s not the right time or there’s a better door. Everything God does, He does for a reason, He’s not going to leave us empty handed or stranded. He always has a plan. I feel like many times we decide something isn’t for us before we give it a chance because we are so focused on our own plans. I know we all think that we know what’s best for ourselves but trust me when I say God knows much more, we’re not even scratching the surface. So we must trust Him with every area of our lives. Even our relationships.

Now this is a big one, relationships. I don’t just mean romantic relationships, I mean every type of relationship. There’s couple of quotes I’d like to reference here,

“Some people aren’t meant to be in our lives forever. Some are just passing through to teach us a lesson.”

-Unknown

“Some people come into your life as blessing, others come in your life as lessons”

-Unknown

The main point I’m trying to make here, is that even people have seasons in our lives. Some people are only meant to be in our lives for a season. We go wrong when we try to make seasonal people permanent. Meaning we could very well be holding on the very thing that God Himself is trying to break apart. Sometimes we are so caught up in our feeling that we try to force everlasting on temporary. This will only end in heartbreak. Trust me I know from experience, however God even uses the heartbreak to shape and mould us into the person He has always destined for us to be. So somehow someway God will keep us in His will.   Having people in our lives for just a season is not always a bad thing, what it means is that where we are going some people cannot go and where others are going we cannot go. It’s not just about us either, we have to be willing to let people go not just for our sake but for theirs. We know when someone’s season is up, we just feel it, so let’s not force it to continue knowing it’s over. We have to realize that sometimes we are only meant to be in a person’s life for a season, and be okay with that. This is not to say that nothing is everlasting, it is, just not everything.

All this to say, not everything is meant to last forever and that is okay. It’s life. We must learn how to let go when it’s time to let go. As well as trust God with where our lives are going and where He is taking us. We must keep a loose grip on our plans and understand that God’s plans are always greater than ours. Trust Him with everything you are and all you aspire to be.

Reflection

1. How hard is it to let go for you?
2. Have you had (or currently have) people in your life that you know was only meant to be there for a season?
3. Do you trust God’s timing?
4. Do you trust God with your life?

Prayer Time

Allow your answers to the above questions guide your prayer. Talk to God about the seasons and seasonal people in your life. Have an honest conversation about what it looks like to completely trust Him.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening. Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 245!

Day 235: Merely Vessels

1 Corinthians 3:5-7

After all, who is Apollos? Who is Paul? We are only God’s servants through whom you believed the Good News. Each of us did the work the Lord gave us. I planted the seed in your hearts, and Apollos watered it, but it was God who made it grow. It’s not important who does the planting, or who does the watering. What’s important is that God makes the seed grow.

We are merely vessels used by God to bring forth His purpose for people on Earth. We are vessels through which His word is revealed to His people. I want to talk about this today because I think sometimes we can get caught up in the idea that we are the ones doing God’s work, and not Him doing it through us. We can get a big head sometimes and a bit arrogant. Without Him we would not have anything to give or do. So sometimes we have to check ourselves like, ‘Chill, go sit down somewhere and have a glass of humility.’ I love that Paul starts this statement off with a question, basically asking, “Who am I and who is Apollos?” Like who do you think I am, or who do you think I think I am. We sometimes view ourselves as more than what we actually are. It’s like a need to feel or be important.  We are simply God’s servants, just vessels here to be used by God. We’re only here to do what God has told us to do, and at the end of the day, what matters most is that God did the increase. Yes, we are vessels of God’s word, but we have to know that He doesn’t need us, He wants us. He wants us here planting and watering seeds so that He can make the increase. He wants to use us to bring His good news to the people, but that does not mean that the show stops when we decide to make ourselves unavailable. Paul goes on to say, I did one thing, Apollos did another but without God it would have never grown. He did the increase, not us. It doesn’t matter who watered or who planted all that matters is that God made it grow. At the end of the day, God is the only one who can make us grow, the only one who can increase us. Which brings me to my next point.

We often give God’s praise to man. Meaning we credit the people God used instead of giving honor where it is due. While God sends people in our lives to help us grow and elevate us, we must make sure that we realize it is God who is working through them. We can honor people for what they have done, and thank people, and show our gratitude, there’s nothing wrong with that. It becomes a sin when we begin to take away what God is doing in our lives and give all the credit and honor to man. God has gotten us where we are today, He has used man to help along the way but God is behind it all.

I love Chance The Rapper, but there is a specific moment in his career I want to highlight, and it’s when he won his Grammy for best new artist. He might have set the record for how many times someone has thanked God in an award speech. I love the fact that he thanked God for the position he is in. He thanked God for the people around him that helped make him winning a grammy possible. He gave God all the credit, for everything. He knows that if it wasn’t for God he wouldn’t have the people in his life that pushed him, helped him, and supported him. God is the mastermind behind it all.

All this to say, God is behind everything. No matter how much we plant or how much we water, until God does the increase, nothing will happen. God deserves the praise for all of it, let’s not take it away from Him and give it to someone else.

Reflection/ Prayer Time

1. Take the time to think about and thank God for the people in your life, that God has placed there to get you where you are today,
2. Next take the time to realize that we are merely vessels and thank Him for using us to bring forth His word to people.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 236!

Day 122: From Adam to Jesus

1 Corinthians 15:45

Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

Colossians 1:15

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

Philippians 2:8

And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

There are many comparisons between Adam and Jesus in the theology world, but also biblically as Paul calls Jesus the last Adam in 1 Corinthians. Today we are going to explore these ideas, and get an understanding of what Paul meant when He called Jesus the last Adam.

It is largely understood that Jesus came to do what Adam could not, He came to fix the very things that had been severed and broken as a result of the fall. Jesus was the answer to a broken world that could only be fixed or saved through his sacrifice. From the moment Adam ate the forbidden fruit humanity was separated from God, and Jesus was the only one who could unite us once again.

Adam was created in the image of God, he was created a perfect man initially, completely good. When Adam was created there was no sin in the world, sin entered the world through him. Romans 5:12 states Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—We are the descendants of Adam therefore we inherited his sin. Jesus was also perfect, he was the very image of God. Jesus being conceived by the holy spirit was not born a sinner but born into a sinful world and was completely human, Jesus walked on this earth as a perfect man, never sinning or falling into sin. Both men were given a choice, Adam with the tree (Genesis 2:16-17) and Jesus in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1). Adam chose to eat the fruit which would result in the fall of humanity. Jesus would stand against the temptations of satan, and save humanity by giving his life up on the cross. The difference between the two men is that one came to fix the mistakes or even pay for the mistakes of the other. Adam was disobedient to God and chose death when he and Eve chose to eat the forbidden fruit, it was through these actions that sin sin entered the world. It was through Jesus that sin was defeated in the world. The scripture says that Jesus was obedient to the point of death, if saving this world meant dying the most humiliating and painful death known to man, then Jesus was willing to do it and He did. He was completely selfless in doing so.  

1 Peter 2:24

who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed.

Certain translations refer to the cross as a tree  seeing that cross was made out of wood. Ironically it goes to show that a man eating fruit from a tree is caused the fall of humanity. But years later, the promised Messiah would hang from a tree saving humanity from the result of the fall.

Adam is a representation of humanity as the Hebrew meaning of the name Adam is, man or mankind. The name Adam is also a masculine term for the word Adamah, meaning earth. We are Adam, we are the sinners who have chosen to live a life of sin, and we were and are in desperate need of a Savior. From the moment we were disconnected from GOd, He has been in constant pursuit of our heart in order to have relationship with us.

Colossians 1:14

For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.

“We are all connected with the first Adam (the natural and legal head of the human race) as depraved and guilty sinners, and so are included in the sentence of death which God pronounced on him. However, all who are connected with the last Adam, Jesus, through repentance and faith in His redeeming work, are forgiven, have ‘received the free gift of righteousness’, and so ‘have passed from death to life’.”

Jesus came to save and fix this broken world, it is through His sacrifice that we are able to have a relationship with God and live a holy and righteous life, which is what God intended from the very beginning. Jesus did what Adam could not do by carrying the sin of every man on His shoulders and taking it to the grave, and being raised from the dead three days later. By doing so he defeated the power of sin and death, so we no longer have to live in sin. We are no longer connected to the sin of Adam. We have been redeemed by the sacrifice of Jesus, who has taken away the impurities from humanity.

Reflection

Today was a bit theologically heavy, but what is your response? Do you see the parallels between Adam and Jesus and their choices directly affected humanity?

Prayer Time

As a response to today’s reading talk to God about what stood out to you. Thank God that He did not let us die in our sin, but He sent Jesus in order that we may have relationship with Him.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening. Make sure you share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 123!