Day 338: Show Up!

Matthew 7:7

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.”

Contrary to the popular belief, acting is hard. There’s so much work that goes into it, more than just reading a script and saying lines, anybody can do that. But a real actor makes you believe the lines, makes you feel what they are talking about, connecting with the audience and the other characters. We put all the work in behind the scenes so the performance you see looks real and effortless. With that being said, one of the best things my teacher has said to me was, ‘half the job of an actor is to just show up, and then you keep showing up.’ Meaning, we have to be there of we want to work we have to show up to rehearsal, ad before that we have to show up to the audition if we want the job. There are two points I want to make today. One being that if we want anything from God we have to make the effort to show up. The second being if we want anything out of life, we have to make the effort to show up.

Matthew 7:7 is a scripture that I have been hearing all my life. I have heard people talk about it in sermons, conversations, and bible studies. What I grew to understand about the scripture is that if we want something we have to ask. If we want the door to open we have to knock on it. If we want to find something we have to look for it. The scriptures are more literal sometimes than we think. A lot of times we think we are entitled to receive extra things from God so we do not ask. God has given us so much already that if He never does anything else He has done enough. We get to a point when we want the presence of God in our lives but we stop seeking His face. Or we want a door to open in our lives and we’re not knocking because we expect God to do exactly what we want when we want it. God will open doors in our lives but sometimes He wants to see that we have enough faith to knock, that we are willing to take a step, and sometimes that step is knocking on a door. This scripture is a testament that we give what we get, and in order to get something we have to give. We have to take the first step. God is already there waiting for us to show us, it’s us who keep Him waiting. We must make the decision to take the first step toward Him and see where it takes us.  

With that being said, we as humans sometimes forget that life is full of opportunities but only if we choose to take them. Our generation has been called entitled on many occasions, they say we think the world owes us something. While I disagree with that notion, I do believe that we must understand that things aren’t going to come knocking on our doors. God has blessed each and every one of us with a purpose and sometimes we use being called by God as an excuse as to why we can’t get up and do something. We sometimes use God’s calling on our lives as an excuse to do nothing or an excuse not to put any effort into our lives but expect so much out of it. What I’m saying is that God will open a door but He’s not going to walk through it for us. God took the first step by carving out a path for us we have to choose to walk it. As  performer one thing I know for a fact is that if I do not go the audition I will not get the part. If we do not first take a step we will never get to where we are going. If we do not at least knock on the door it will not be opened. If we never ask the question we’ll always sit wondering what the answer was.

All this to say, just show up. Make an effort to do something and not hide away. Show up in your relationship with God, take a step of faith towards Him and watch what He does. Show up for life, whatever you want, whatever God has called you to do or be, show up. It’s scary but it’s so worth it, because God is already there. He’s just waiting on us to show up, sometimes that’s all we have to do. We can’t flake on God, if we do, not only are flaking on Him but we’re flaking on ourselves.

Make the effort, just show up! Dare to make an effort.

Response/Prayer Time

Take the time to think about and pray about what we discussed today. Ask yourself if you are showing up in life, in your relationship with God. Take the time to talk to God about whatever you discovered today and whatever is on your heart.

I love you so much and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 339!

Day 166: It Was Impossible

Acts 2:24

God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death because it was not possible for Him to be held by it.

John 10:17-18

For this reason, the Father loves me because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it back up again. This charge I have received from my Father.

I think one of the most important things mentioned here is, Jesus telling the people, you aren’t taking my life, I’m laying it down for my people. You have no authority over me, it is by the power given to me by my Father that I am even able to do such a thing. Jesus is making it clear that they can do nothing without His consent. They cannot take the life of the one who gave it in the first place. He is laying it down for His people. They thought they were doing Jesus harm when they killed Him, they thought they were winning when they nailed Him to the cross. They thought they were on top when He refused to come down off the cross. But little did they know, it was all part of the plan. They can’t do what God won’t allow. It was predestined that Jesus would die for humanity, but also be raised in three days.

Moving on to the book of Acts where Paul says it was impossible for Jesus to be held by death. Jesus is greater than death, and He defeated it when He died. He cannot be held by it. He is too mighty and too powerful. Jesus defeated the power of death when He took on the sins of humanity and died with them. It looked like death had won the battle but at the end of the day, Jesus was the only one to rise from the grave. He was the only one released from the grave. Death belonged there, life didn’t. When Jesus walked out of that tomb, death wasn’t with Him, He walked out with all life in his hands. It was impossible for Him to be defeated. Here’s the thing about this amazing story, Jesus defeated death for us. The same way He took our sin away from us, He defeated death for us. What I’m saying is, we alone cannot defeat the power or pangs of death. We alone cannot do it. Jesus came and took on our invisible battles, He came and fought a fight that one, we could not win, and two, a fight that we could not see we were losing. When Jesus came, humanity was dying in sin. Humanity was not doing too hot, we weren’t really upstanding citizens. Humanity needed a savior or we would die in our sin, never really knowing what it was like to have a relationship with God. Death was on our heels and we didn’t know it. Jesus came as a person who could not be defeated or swayed by the enemy, but He came to defeat the enemy. He came to fight an enemy that we weren’t equipped to go into battle with just yet. Jesus fills that gap for us, What the people didn’t understand is that Jesus was fighting for them. Jesus was standing in the gap for the people, He was saving them, protecting them from something much bigger than what they could see. They were worried about Him sitting with sinners, and healing on the day of Sabbath, but they were blind to the work He was doing to fix our corrupted souls. They were blind the things He was doing to make sure we were not consumed by death. They didn’t see what was really going on.

This is why I believe with every ounce of my being that we are in constant need of a Savior, we cannot walk through this life alone it will beat us up and down every which way possible. It was impossible for death to hold Jesus, that’s why He took a death that belonged to us. Jesus completes us, we cannot be held down by death or sin because He has already defeated them on our behalf. He has given us a way to eternity, by being the way.

John 14:6

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Response/Prayer Time

Take the time to read through the scriptures and just think about how Jesus has filled in the gaps for us. Meditate on His word, and thank Him. Talk to Him about whatever stood out to you. Just take the time to pray and spend time with Him today.  

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 167!

Day 126: On the Detour

We all know the story of Jonah and how he ran from God. I want to break it down a bit and talk about how we encounter God on the detour.

Jonah was a prophet of God, meaning he was God’s mouthpiece. Chosen to speak the words God told him directly. So God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh, and tell the people that if they don’t repent destruction is coming. Instead of going to Nineveh, Jonah was like nope, I’m out. He tried to go to Tarshish. He went to Joppa, hopped on a ship and was on his way to Tarshish. He never even made it there, God sent a storm when he got on the boat and the people staring praying to their gods, and throwing cargo over, but Jonah was the cargo that really needed to be thrown over. They go to Jonah, who was sleep. He was sleeping, he has brought havoc on these people's lives because he don’t want to list and now he’s down there sleeping while they are dealing with the storm caused by him.  So they go to him and ask him what he did, and he tells them he was fleeing from the presence of God. (Jonah 1:7) Then he tells them to cast him into the sea, and then the storm will be stopped. They tried to get back to dry land so they wouldn’t have to throw him overboard, but it was impossible. So they picked him up and threw him into the sea, and the scripture says, in the same sentence, “the sea ceased from its raging” Then it say God appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah up. Hold up, okay so God appointed a great fish. He instructed a fish to go and swallow Jonah! That’s mind blowing! Okay back to the story. Jonah stays in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights.

Now when I’ve seen this story depicted in picture books and things of that sort, it made it look like Jonah was in a motel. But I don’t think it was that way at all, I’ve never been in the belly of a fish and I don’t plan on it. Most people in the belly of fishes are dead so no thank you. But Jonah wasn’t dead, that’s a miracle in itself, God allowed a fish to swallow him but not kill him. Leave to God to do something miraculous like that, that only He can do. But Jonah is in the belly of this fish, and I imagine it’s dark, probably slimy and wet, very uncomfortable. But Jonah is in the belly of the whale and it is there that he starts praying, and it was then that God ordered the fish to somit Jonah up. After that experience Jonah then goes to Nineveh to do what God told him to do from the very beginning.

I think many of us know what it’s like to not only run from God but encounter Him in the midst of our running. We, like Jonah, often have to go through the hard times in order to learn. Growing up my parents would often let us make mistakes fr ourselves so that we can learn from them because telling us wasn’t enough we had to experience it in order to take their word for it. This is a common thing within humanity. Why is that so, why do we have to bump our heads to see that it hurts. Why do we have to take a detour before we realize that the straight path was there all along. Some people may disagree with me when I say this, but experience produces growth in many cases. Sometimes we have to fall to know that we can get back up. Sometimes we have to experience bad things in order to know what is good. I think God use the very disobedience of Jonah to have an encounter with him, to get his attention. There was no one else he could talk to but God while in the belly of the fish, No one else. We sometimes cause detours and bring certain things upon ourselves, we run away from God, but He will not let us get too far, even if that means taking drastic measure like causing a whole person to be swallowed by a fish. When we read the scripture we will see that Jonah never made it to Tarshish, he set out to go to a place God told him not to but his plan was intercepted. We might try to run away from God but He sees us and HE sees what we are trying to do and He will step right in and block it because He knows that his plan is better than whatever it is we are trying to do.

Response

Today I want you to read the book of Jonah or at least the first three chapters, and read what was talked about today, and responds. There is no prompt today. After that, have a conversation with god, talk to him about whatever is on your heart.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening. Share this with someone and be sure to come back tomorrow for day 127!