Supersize

I have not departed from the commandment of His lips; I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my portion of food. 

Job 23:12

Of course we see that God’s purpose for us is greater than our food – at least if we’re a Christian and not godless Philippians 3:19

So, it is interesting that Satan tempts us with something that is a part as if it is a whole – but as Jesus replied to him, “Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Father.” Luke 4:4

God provides all.  He is our portion Psalm 73:26

It is not possible for a human to imagine or design a better life for themselves than the one God wants for them.

We need more, not less.  Our ambitions need to reach higher to connect with His. Rather than settling for our self-crafted participation trophy, why don’t we ask God to supersize our portion for His glory?

It all proceeds from the lips of the Lord — He speaks reality.  Bread (our sustenance for our physical needs) is but one small sliver.  

More than my time, talent, terrestrial treasure is the truth the Lord speaks continually in love over me – help me to treasure this first and always – for where my treasure is – so is my heart.  Matthew 6:19-21

The truth of the mysteries of God has been given to us — this is who you are, a servant of Christ entrusted to transform the world (starting with yourself) by the truth God has shown you.  1 Corinthians 4:1-2

Your time, talent, treasure in the world has been given you for the purpose of assisting you in your ambassadorship to reconcile the world to God. 2 Corinthians 5:20

Is this where your heart is?

Are you asking the Lord to help you to see His invisible world that you need to see to make Him visible in your life and the world He sent you to love? 

What keeps you from living your calling fully each day?

I help people pursue their calling and purpose in their every day and work lives. If I can assist you, my online calendar is always up-to-date so you can use it to find a time that is convenient for you and I to meet: http://toddboyum.as.me/zoom15

Disruptive Faith

How God Disrupted My Life

“Aslan is a lion- the Lion, the great Lion.” “Ooh” said Susan. “I’d thought he was a man. Is he-quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion”…”Safe?” said Mr Beaver …”Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe 

“Ha!  You Christians think you’re so perfect, but you can’t even change your stupid sign.” 

This was the thought that ran through my mind as I sped passed the church.  It was just off the highway I drove every day to and from work. You know the type — a billboard with a Christian slogan or scripture verse.  I supposed it was the Church attempting to attract people to visit.

Normally, it changed weekly, but I was making fun of them because it had been seven weeks since they had changed it.   I now can think of a dozen reasons it might make sense to leave a scripture on a billboard for an extended time.  At that moment, I guess I assumed it was a dereliction of their duty – a failure.

This childish glee continued for another week as I yoyoed between work and home while the sign remained unchanged.  Then I became bored with that mental game and started another.

As I began to actually comprehend the text, I fixated on the first four words – “And be not conformed”, I doubled down in a new condemnation: “What do you guys know about non-conformity anyway?  You’re all about conformity.  I’m a true non-conformist.  You’re just about the status quo, you conforming little sheep.”

I had always been an outcast and unaccepted – at least in my mind.   I did not attend a single school for two years in a row until high school, so I learned to go it alone and not get too attached.   In high school, I found I did not fit in with any of the cliques.  I spent most of my time with the drama group who seemed like a diverse mix from the island of misfit toys to me.  Even here, I felt like an outsider. 

I found some weird type of safety in seeing my identity as a non-conformist – even to the non-conformist.  Certainly, this church was not about non-conformity.

I played this game for a week longer picking on the conforming goodie-two-shoes that could not even faithfully change their ridiculous sign.  But I read it each time I went by. Back and forth, day and night, its words seeping in.

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed
by the renewing of your mind. 

Romans 12:2a

This amusement became tedious as well and was replaced by this daring declaration, “I bet that’s not even in the Bible!”

I am confident that anybody will likely catch why this is a bold, if not comically arrogant, thought.  I mean, this was a church billboard and I was not a Christian at the time – certainly not a Bible reader.   

I was not unaware of Jesus and God.  I was raised Catholic – casually – meaning mass on Christmas and Easter and when we visited my grandparents.

If you have not experienced a Catholic mass, you may not know that the faithful do not use a Bible since the Church conveniently provides the scripture necessary in a missalette. This little printed pamphlet contains an outline of the service. It tells you when to pray, what the Priest will say, what you will say in response, and when to sit or kneel. It also includes readings from the Old and New Testament printed with very formal references to the scripture such as: “A reading from the letter of Paul to the Romans.”

Despite my limited exposure, I did have moments growing up where I felt a connection and heart calling to God.   I also thought these readings were correspondence that some missionaries at our church had written and had no idea they were in the Bible.

I was pretty sure we had a Bible at the house, even though we never used it.  Sure enough, I found it on a top shelf in our living room and after cleaning the mountain of dust off it, I dove in to prove this passage about non-conformity was in error.

I discovered all these tabs on the edge of the book pages and ascertained they were abbreviations of the sections in the Bible. So far, so good.  I was shocked when I opened to the beginning of Romans and saw the words, “The Letter of Saint Paul to the Romans”. 

“Wait!  That’s the guy from all those letters at mass!  That’s from the Bible!”

Mind a bit blown, I made my way to Romans Chapter 12, Verse 2 – deciphering the structure for the first time.  Confirming that the verse was mostly as advertised on the church billboard, I decided I needed to understand the entire context.  Maybe that would make it different somehow.  Romans 12:1-2 told me:

I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Romans 12:1-2

I found these little symbols in the text – T and R.  Continuing my improvised study of Biblical structure, I found references that led me somehow to the book of Matthew.  

Once there, I was confronted with something new.  Some words were red and some were black. Reading a few of each, I quickly saw that the red letters were the words of Jesus and I was very intrigued by what I read. 

Before I knew it, I had read this entire Gospel and I found myself in love with Jesus and frustrated, if not a bit angry, that my Christian friends and church people had not been able to share with me what I clearly saw now.  

To be honest, I had never really had a Christian treat me poorly. Yet, somehow, I had in my mind that they thought of themselves as perfect and they (and I) knew I was a hot mess and not accepted by them – even though I had never really been shunned or treated badly.

In the Bible, I found Jesus going, not to the religious people, but to the hot-mess, non-conforming, outcasts like me!   I could hardly believe it.  But the pattern was clear over and over again.  I realized the Pharisees and Sadducees were the religious holier-than-thou elite and Jesus was constantly trying to help them get over themselves and their rules so they could love people.

What was not to love about Jesus?

I did not have anyone there with me to teach me the sinner’s prayer or tell me my next step – but I did not need that.  God had disrupted my seemingly non-conforming, tragically truly conforming life and showed me the only real non-conformist, Jesus Christ, His son who laid down His life for others instead of claiming His right to it – because he loved us that much.

What is Real Non-Conformity?

I have spent about 37 years with Romans 12:1-2 since that night and God still shows me amazing new things from these two verses.  That is crazy-awesome-miraculous.

It is still sad to me when this verse is used to heap judgement upon people – Do not conform any longer to the pattern of the world with the pattern being drinking, sex, cussing or whatever other infraction being condemned by the speaker.  The pattern of this world is self, separate from God, and the Pharisees as well as those they condemned as sinners were stuck in this pattern. The modern equivalent is no different.

The transformation that comes from renewing your mind is the one that Jesus enabled for us – by us viewing instead, His mercies that enable us to be a living sacrifice because we too give up our life to let Christ live His through us. 

Even after we become a Christian, Satan accuses us constantly that we are not good enough – as if we were still separate from Christ. But Christ already disrupted Satan’s power when He claimed us and came to live in us as one with us – as our very life. 

That is what disruptive faith is – the faith of Christ to overcome both sin and death in us, which he has already done.   This is why we must continually renew our minds to see the mercy and grace Christ already provided – Christ in us, the hope of glory – and continually let this revelation transform our lives.

Why Does This Matter?

People are often amazed when I share how I came to know Christ through a billboard rather than another person.  I am sure others had talked to me before about Christ, but it never seemed they had introduced Him to me.  I think that is true for most of us, even if we come to Christ when another shares the gospel with us. Usually, there were previous experiences too but this one is the one in which Christ reveals Himself to us – even if facilitated by another.   Saint Paul tells us it requires God’s revelation:

But when God, who had set me apart even from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles.

Galatians 1:15-16a

When we see Christ as one with us, it is not our environment, behavior, capabilities or even beliefs that change – It is our identity.  We are now one with Him, inseparable.  This is true regardless of our environment, situation, or circumstances.  This is true despite our behavior whether good or bad.  We are not operating under the law of good and bad – but under the reality of Christ’s grace and life in us as one.

When we are one with Him, we love Him and His life in us begins to transform us as we journey with Him. Like Paul, God reveals His son in us for a purpose God reveals His son in us SO THAT we might live out a unique calling with Him in our life. 

Seeing His presence in us is how we come to know how we are uniquely called to live and love others. It empowers us to co-create with Him the same types of environments of love and grace He created when he walked the earth.

We are not here to only work and live and consume and experience our culture.  Christ has disrupted all that.  He has replaced life with life abundant.  We are here to partner with Christ in the restoration of all things – to create His culture – on earth as it is in heaven.  

If you have invited Him in, Christ lives in you and through you and is disruptively revealing Himself to you, SO THAT you can disruptively partner together.   Your calling, His mission through you is at stake. 

  • Do you see Him? 
  • How will you partner with Him? 
  • Will you accept His disruptive calling and live life abundantly?

Father’s Day 54

It was 10 AM on Father’s Day when my Father told you bye,
Just two years and a day before I was born.
We never met yet I’ve tried to beget your spirit flying by
Through photographs and books that time has worn.

Dad was dating Mom and life had only just begun.
He wore that saintly name you shared with your Dad.
Now he’s 76 and he’s still slaying dragons.
And I sure love all the adventures we have had.

My oldest boy bears the middle name your wife gave to my Dad,
And they’re both taller than us now that he’s grown.
You’d be proud to know he also became an Eagle Scout,
And at 32, he has two kids of his own.

Little George was Christened today on Father’s day,
Sharing his Grandfather’s name, both first and last.
He’s so smart, you’d love His heart and his love of sports
And how at just two, he rides his bike so fast.

I’m the age you were when you went home to meet the Lord,
But God’s given me a mission yet to lead.
So on this Father’s day, I honor you and Him more
Adding weight to you from all His glorious deeds.

Predator’s View (Warrior of Light)

In view  of his mercies
New every morning
New every minute
Knew before forming

Wisely choose sacrifice
Renewing your mind
Transforming lives
Redeeming in kind

There’s no waste in grace
Though faith may seem blind
It finds glory someplace
It abides for all time

Rule o’er your enemies
For greater is He
Surrender your life
Pure intimacy

Neither good nor bad
Morality
Subtracts or adds
True Nobility

Hear now his call
And lift up your voice
Conform no longer
Commit to real choice.

Our enemies never
Brothers and sisters
But demons whoever
Speak fear when it whispers

Run fast and hunt
Fulfill your birthright
Child of the King
Warrior of Light

God is more interested in your future and your relationships than you are. — Billy Graham

God’s REAL care for us!

Perhaps, like me, you have sometimes felt very far away from God — like He really didn’t care about your life. I think we’ve all felt that way — I know I have.

Billy Graham, one of the most influential evangelists and preachers of the 20th century who went home to be with the Lord last week, once said, “God is more interested in your future and your relationships than you are.”

It’s hard to imagine the God of the universe can really care for each of us. We’ve all known how people that are much higher than us on any given ladder — career, life, even church — can’t really make time for us. You likely can’t make time for all the people in your life either. There just is not that kind of time and capability in humans.

But God is not human. He is constrained by neither time or scale. Because we are, it is hard to imagine his infinitude. And our many enemies don’t want us to believe that either.

God says “I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah‬ ‭29:11‬ ‭ESV‬‬

It’s hard to imagine because we don’t experience this with people and because there is so much that tries to rob us of this reality. This is way faith is important. Faith is about believing the truth in absence of seeing it. “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” ‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭11:1‬ ‭NIV‬‬

How do we get this kind of faith?

Here are four REAL activities that will help you grow your faith and connect with God in ways you may never have before.

Reckon it to be true

The Apostle Paul told the believers at Rome to reckon themselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” ‭‭Romans‬ ‭6:11‬ ‭KJV‬‬. Sometimes, we equated our faith to religious activity, traditions, our upbringing and many other things. At some point, we need to move beyond all this and truly decide to believe that it is really true.

This is the beginning of faith — a faith that is beyond religion — that becomes core to our identity. It ceases to be a separate part of us at this point and begins to permeate all of our life.

Since Christ is our very life and identity, we have full access to God. If we really believe this, we begin to ask God what this reality means in every area of our life, and this new focus of mind begins to transform our life from the inside out.

Explore possibilities of true evidence

There are so many ways that God reveals himself to us and seeing them, especially the really unique ones, helps us to know he cares for us specifically. Start to focus your thinking on these things more than the noise that God doesn’t care about you.

Often times, that noise is caught up with negative things we’ve come to believe about ourselves. These negative things are not how our Heavenly Father sees us. Those things are coming from other voices. You can transform this thinking by asking God to reveal to you who you really are.

For each negative thing you tell yourself about yourself and how you are with others, reckon that God wants to show you another possibility. If you think you’re judgmental, maybe you just really value truth and courage. If you see yourself as negative, another possibility may be that you focus on risk and preventing bad outcomes. If you think you’re lazy, perhaps this is telling you that you’re not inspired by by what you’re doing and is really God leading you to honestly pursue your real heart. What other possibility is there for the negative in your thinking — because why would you or God treat you this way.

We overlook a lot of real evidence right in front of our eyes. For instance, you reading this post is evidence that God loves you and is reaching out to you uniquely. He had me write it for you. I didn’t have to write it — you didn’t have to stumble upon it and read it. Breathing is a miraculous gift even though we don’t hardly notice it. Opening your eyes to all this evidence we barely see will significantly grow your relationship with God and change your life.

Adore God for who He truly is

Just as the voices in our head that are not for us tell us confusing and misleading things about us, they also confuse us about God, His character and His purpose. If we’ve had difficulty with religious people or our earthly father, we may have a hard time seeing God rightly.

Even if we have a long and good experience in a particular religious institution — we may have limited perspectives about God if our training focuses on some of God’s attributes more than others. God is bigger than any particular institution or a single set of practices.

Exploring God attributes in detail as AW Tozer does in The Knowledge of the Holy empowers us by seeing His love and intention toward us clearly. It helps us catch His amazing vision for us — that He has made our story to be a part of His grand story. This is an incredible miracle and great news. He loves us always irrespective of our weaknesses and is always inviting us to have relationship with him and be a part of His purpose.

Learn to hear Him call you His child in whom he is well pleased

I grew up Catholic and can honestly say I have a few memories in which I truly felt God in my life. Still, I was near abandoning all belief in Him I when He revealed Himself to me in a highly unique way that caused me to fall in love with Him. I was able to begin to reckon Him to be true at this point and it radically improved my life.

Still, it was years later before I came to another event in my life that helped me really see that God saw me as His child and that He was well pleased with me. This brought my relationship with Him to a new level. I now saw I didn’t need to try to please Him because He was pleased — because He saw Christ in me — He saw me as He saw Christ.

This shifted my focus from doing to being — how to walk in the confidence of the truth of who I am in Christ. This is the truth for all His children. I’m still learning this truth — but it has made my faith even more real.

God cares for you intensely and uniquely — more than you know or can fathom. Your truest self is found in seeing this reality. I hope you will let it become REAL for you too.

Please comment, like, share, and and subscribe if this post was helpful to you.

Thanks for the Moment

Have you ever woken up on the wrong side of the bed or found yourself grumbling in difficult situations and circumstances. We’ve all been there, right? Give me a few minutes of your time to share with you a technique that helps me and explains the basis of Viewed Mercies. You’ll be thankful you did.

I would appreciate your thoughts on this first video for Viewed Mercies blog.

Thank you, Todd!!


Please tell me what you think about this video post!!

Free and Clear

The most valuable things in life are given to us freely and we tend to place little value on them. We take them for granted, fail to be thankful and grateful for them and often misuse them or ignore them. On top of this, we tend to spend our time and effort worrying and grumbling about what we don’t have instead and this is about things that tend to have way less value.

What do we have freely? We have life without which nothing we want would matter. We have a body that is wonderfully and intricately made enabling us to move through the world and to interact with it. For most of us, this means that we can interact through five other free gifts: sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell. While you are doing all of that, your amazing body is automatically breathing, circulating, moving, processing food, interacting with the world — without you having to consciously think about it. While all of that is happening, you are doing other things.

Our amazing body houses in it an even more awesome and mysterious mind. The proper use of our mind brings us everything we want in life. Unlike all other beasts that operate via instinct, we can think, explore, judge, imagine, envision, plan, synthesize, communicate, learn, feel, create, choose and direct our course through life however we see fit. Our amazing minds let us look at any moment or situation from a number of different vantage points or from all of them at the same time. Who hasn’t had a moment in which a situation seems one way then a completely different way a moment later when some new information is revealed? We’ve all experienced a paradigm shift, yet, few of us have considered that nothing really changed in the situation and we could have chosen to look it from both lenses at anytime. That’s how powerful our mind is, but there’s more. The mind also fuels mysterious things such and intuition, subconscious, and our soul and spirit.

Speaking of our soul and spirit, another free gift to us from God is his son, Jesus, the Christ, the Redeemer who came to teach us what love is and who God is. But he accomplished so much more that is freely given to us. He also sacrificed himself to pay for our sins so that our life can be eternally with God in love instead of eternally without God in despair and torment. And even more than that moment of sacrifice is the mystery of Godliness which means that through the Resurrection of Christ, God made it such that our spirit and soul could also be transformed by the presence of Christ in us, the hope of glory. The is what it means to be reborn. So, besides the gift of physical life, we have a gift of rebirth to external spiritual life in God, because Christ, his son, will dwell in us making God our father just as he was to Jesus.

We have have the gift of natural parents too and while some of us may not have had good parents, still they brought you into life and somehow, through them or others, you were cared for until you could reach the age of maturity and survive on your own — all of which does not always happen, so if it has happened for you, it is free gift.

We have the free gift of our relationships — all the love, passion, camaraderie, fellowship, and partnership in the joys and difficulties of life. For most of us, this highest form of this is with a life partner and the most grateful of pursue committing to via marriage because this is a gift and not a burden. Through this gift, many of us have the extraordinary blessing of children and grandchildren forming a free gift of legacy and love flowing out to time beyond our lives. All this is free to those who recognize it for the gift it is and grab hold of it. Some of us are not blessed to obtain these gifts physically but because other don’t want it or misuse children, there are plenty of options for people to partake of this blessing by loving children who are not loved because their parents couldn’t see on of the most valuable gifts from God.

Another free gift from God is purpose. While many people think work is a curse, this is because they don’t realize they can define their own purpose and spend their time doing what they love and feel great about – work that makes them excited, proud, fulfilled and filled with joy and with relationships taking that journey with them and sharing in the adventure and joy of it.

Another gift many of us in the world have is freedom. This gift is not as guaranteed because there are places in the world where much freedom is restricted so those who have it should be aware of the great gift it is, but frequently are not. Freedom empowers us to explore other free gifts: the free gift of the world, the free gift of reading, learning, and education, the free gift of whatever we want to do with the free gift of time we all have every day. Freedom means we are free not to worry that others can direct our lives or take our lives. It is security from tyranny and enslavement. Freedom breeds another gift, Choice. Even for those whose liberties are restricted, freedom and choice still can liberate their minds in powerful ways.

All of these free gifts, in our persons, are layered on top of free gifts all around us. The world is a free gift to us and all the trillions of wonders in it. These miracles scale down to the fantastic microcosm of cells, atoms, DNA and their many divisions and parts that hold the world together and invisibly operate it and scale up to the macrocosm of the heavens complete with planets and stars within in millions of galaxy within the universe and perhaps beyond. More mysteriously and largely unknown but increasing in evident are how all this may be effected by various dimensions of space and time. But more obvious to us though also taken for granted is the air that we breath, the atmosphere that enables life, the sun and the rotation of the world that keep us warm but not burning up and creates days and seasons, the processes that replenish oxygen, cause food to grow and animals to live, the laws that hold us to the ground and govern order. The large variety of plants and animals that enable us to have diversity in food and culture and can be used for so many other purposes like medicine, work help, companionship, and beauty are all gifts – we could live in a world where there was only one thing to eat. All of this and more does not have to exist but it does and it is a necessary gift to us so that we can live and thrive.

So, all of this is free — and largely, we don’t give it much thought.

What do we think about, worry about, want? Some of these things are necessary like food, clothing and a roof over our head but most are optional, wants versus needs. Even the necessities of food, clothing, and shelter are often pursued gratuitously: better or more convenient (costly) food, designer over functional (costly) clothing, and more luxurious shelter. There is nothing wrong with wanting more – of course we should, but to the extent it is gratuitous, shouldn’t our attitude toward it be that much more grateful about all we’ve been given. Hopefully we are.

Consider this: if you don’t have the things that you want that are not free, perhaps it is largely because they are products. You might remember from elementary school math that a product is the result of multiplying factors, 2×3=6 for instance, and the non-free things we want are similarly products that are derived from other factors. They are the fruit of our labor and therefore the non-free products we possess are largely related our practical application of the free things we’ve all been given. If we use the free things properly, blessing for us are multiplied. If we use them haphazardly, then we operate two steps forward and one step back. And if we use them poorly or destructively, we can destroy our lives and the lives of others around us. A formula for success is Preparedness times Opportunity equals Success. Opportunity is there all the time so our part is to develop Preparedness. The formula for that is Positive Choice multiplied by Free Gifts equal Preparedness.

Given all this, it all comes down to Choice. If we choose to focus our time on phantom wants ignoring the immense treasure we have, we will waste that treasure. If, instead, we choose to focus on developing our free treasures and applying them properly, we will find we have everything we want and more and we will appreciate all our gifts more. As you reap, so you will sow. It’s your choice. This Thanksgiving (and every day moving forward), I hope this will help you be more grateful for all that you have which I am confident will guide you to your hearts content. Jesus says in Matthew 13:12: “For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.” Realize what you have and invest it gratefully to abundance.

Results-driven or Discipleship

Working for a major corporation, I’ve gotten used to the need to be results-driven. It makes sense. A company needs to be concerned on ROI – return on investment. If they invest resources, they need to be confident it will increase the profitability of the company. My work involves deciding what we should invest in doing so I am always thinking about how this will help the company grow and deciding which things to not do as well.

“And you shall speak my words to them, whether they hear or refuse to hear, for they are a rebellious house.” ‭‭Ezekiel‬ ‭2:7‬ ‭ESV‬‬

So, I have to keep in mind that Jesus, my Lord, wants to lead me and His economy is not results-driven — at least, I may not be able to calculate and operate in a results mindset. God is love and does things toward the beloved, us, that transcend the simple math of human ROI. He’s doing advanced calculus in multiple dimensions and we’re doing simple arithmetic with crayons on a big-chief tablet. Our Father loves us but we are his children and still have a limited ability to understand his ways.

I once sent a story out to a few family members about a pastor who chooses to save his son’s friend over his son when their boat capsizes. His decision was based on the fact that he knew his son was a believer and the other boy was not and he was unwilling to let the other boy live an eternity without God. A uncle of mine who was a business leader replied that he couldn’t see the business sense in the story.

I think we all have that problem sometimes until we are transformed by letting Jesus renew our minds as Romans 12:2 says. The word transformed in this verse, the Greek word metamorphoō from which we derive metamorphosis, is the same word that is used in Matthew 17:2 and Mark 9:2 where Jesus is transfigured before Peter, James, and John and they see him in his glory.

When we think of the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly, we imagine a once and for all change — but we need to let God renew our minds continually. While the disciples were moved by the transfiguration, they needed to continue their walk with Jesus and we need to continue to let our relationship with him day-by-day transform us. In fact, the only other use of this Greek word is in 2 Corinthians 3:18 which says: And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

This ability to see and operate in a God-driven economy is intrinsically linked to our willingness to turn our unveiled face toward Christ, contemplating the Lord’s glory above our own then let that guide us. It is really what faith is, but we then need to actualize our faith by doing what Jesus leads us to do, whether they hear or refuse to hear, regardless of our limited ability to calculate that the results will be favorable from our natural point of view.

After Jesus was transfigured, a voice from heaven speaks, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”

Focal Point

It Is so easy to substitute the things of God for God Himself. At the crazy speed of hundreds of interaction a day, I frequently rush to the good things God has given me: the Bible, the law, my sense of justice – of right and wrong, my wisdom (or at least intellect), my capacity and understanding of how to live successfully (not to mention the track record I call upon with likely too much pride) and the ability I believe I use very well to communicate effectively with others. How is it that I so easily access all of these wonderful gifts from God, and yet forget to look to Jesus himself, the giver of all good things?

But my Lord could’ve called legions of angels to defend Himself at Gethsemane and yet, did not. He could have poured out the wrath of God on the Sanhedrin or Pilot yet he spoke not a word to defend Himself. While justice was completely lacking, He chose to look at the Father and His greater justice, and return grace instead.

Jesus, forgive me for misusing your wonderful gifts, making them idols and very poor substitutes for You. How silly am I to reference my memory and understanding which are so limited when You are right there with me, full of Love. Please help me to keep my focal point on You, Jesus, so I have something real to give to others – instead of mostly promoting and defending my sense of self.
Heb 12:2-3; Ps 102:27