The Apostle Paul's point: Genuine love means dealing with each others messiness not ignoring it!

"Bear (endure, carry) one another’s burdens and troublesome moral faults, and in this way fulfill... observe perfectly the law of Christ"

"When you talk, do not say harmful things, but say what people need—words that will help others become stronger."Eph. 4:29 NCV

"It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows." - Gal. 5:13 MSG

...there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent. - Luke 15:7

What are the keys to becoming the person God made you to be? Check out the latest Godstories article @ http://ping.fm/aEwht

Do you feel hopeless in life right now? There is hope for you here. http://ow.ly/31KRX

Do you need a reason to hope again? There is hope for you here. http://ow.ly/31KRX

Jesus "must increase, but I must decrease (John 3:30)." Let's embrace this truth as our hearts cry today.

Rejection can be a catalyst for growth b/c it leads us to realize our weakness. Weakness is an opportunity for God to show up (Exodus 3:11).

This is my prayer for you today..."Therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith...(Colossians 2:6-7)"

"Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:20-21)" Christ follower, Don't limit what God can do within you and in your life. Just let His glory shine!

"God's Son has all the brightness of God's own glory and is like him in every way. By his own mighty word, he holds the universe together." (Heb. 1:3)

We must never underestimate the magnificence of the person of Jesus. Make no mistake about it, Jesus is God of very God. He is co-equal. He is co-eternal. And yet he choose to humble himself. In him all the fullness of Godhood dwells in bodily form. He is not a man who ascended to the level of God. He is our God who took upon Himself flesh. He is God who condescended to earth and took upon himself humanity, yet without sin. What a privilege we have that we can approach Him to obtain mercy and grace? What a privilege that he understands what it is to hunger, thirst, to be tempted and to be tired. actually, the very fact He listens to us when we pray is in itself amazing beyond words. Let yourself be in awe of that truth today. Let that truth penetrate into the deepest chasms of your being and change you today.

What if there were four habits that could lead to unprecedented spiritual growth? Find out what they are @ http://ping.fm/Z10c6

GODSTEPS is moving to a new home to better serve you as we journey towards intimacy with God one step at a time. Thanks to all who are following the Godsteps Blog. To got to the new Godsteps site click here: http://sites.advancedministry.com/GODSTEPS

See you on the New Site,
Jon

Godsteps....Beyond Introductions

It is at this point that we move beyond introductions and begin to wade into the deep. As I stated in the last blog, the step of repentance requires us to do something decisive. We must make a move. We must take a stand. We must make a choice to respond to God. Now I said, "respond to God" and not "move toward God" for a reason. Before we press on towards understanding the choice we must make (i.e. the Godstep of repentance), we need to understand a few things about the character of GOD. First, we must recognize that GOD made the first move toward us long before we ever thought about Him or recognized Him as God. GOD did the unthinkable and decided to go into action on our behalf long before we ever could have made a move toward Him. The idea that God made the first move is a mind boggling concept! The Bible tells us in Romans 5:8 that "when we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners (New Living Translation)." Now if you have been around religion or church very long you have probably heard this before. But before you blow on by this concept, please stop and think about it for a minute. While we were GOD's enemies (like we talked about last time) GOD decided to take a step toward us to enable us to have peace with Him? Why? Why would GOD decide to move toward a relationship with people like us who by nature passionately hated and rebelled against Him. We will talk about that more next time before we move on towards the step of repentance.

Godsteps....Introduction part#4

So how do we take the recognition step? We must each take the step of recognizing that there is a God in the universe and it is not me. This recognition step means moving beyond self-centeredness and recognizing that we are estranged from our Creator who made us for a purpose. The writer of the book of Hebrews (in the Bible) hit the nail on the head when he wrote..."Without faith no one can please God. Anyone who comes to God must believe that he is real and that he rewards those who truly want to find him (Hebrews 11:6)." Amazingly, the Bible assumes the existence and plan of God.
So the question is this...Have you made the first Godstep of recognizing that there is a God and it is not you? If you have, then I want to welcome you along this journey with me as we take the next Godstep. I want to warn you though..... because we are not God that means we have to approach God on his terms. That is why our charity work, religious activity and soul searching lead us no closer to resolution with God. We have to come to him his way. We will begin to look more at how we can deal with our baggage next time. I want to warn you also that the second Godstep is tougher! Simply recognizing that there is a God in the universe is not enough to make us right with Him. There is another step we must take to move from God's enemy to God's friend...it is the step of repentance.

Godsteps....Introduction part #3

As I talked about in Godsteps Introduction...part #2 we have to recognize there is a God and it is not me. Deep inside we will have a nagging feeling that there is a big gap between us and God that no amount of charity work, religious activity or soul searching can make right. We feel this gap because we are born into this world enemies of God... that's right...enemies. The Bible says, "For...while we were enemies we were reconciled to God...(Romans 5:9)." The Bible assumes we are born into the world as God's enemies because we suppress the truth about God and instead try to make God like we want. It is our nature to turn away from God. In fact...the Bible says, "There are things about (God) that people cannot see—his eternal power and all the things that make him God. But since the beginning of the world those things have been easy to understand by what God has made. So people have no excuse for the bad things they do.²¹ They knew God, but they did not give glory to God or thank him. Their thinking became useless. Their foolish minds were filled with darkness.²² They said they were wise, but they became fools (Romans 1:20b-21)." The Bible echoes this idea elsewhere, "Fools say to themselves, "There is no God." (Psalm 53:1). We will talk about the answer in Godsteps.... Introduction part #4.

Godsteps....Introduction part #2

The purpose of this blog is for us to seek greater intimacy with God together one step at a time. Seeking true intimacy with God is not impossible, but it is something that requires us to be honest about ourselves and God.
Last time, I introduced the idea that the first Godstep is the step of recognition. What I meant by that was that in order for us to begin to have real intimacy with God, we must move beyond our self-centeredness, emptiness and pride which takes a step of humility on our part. The recognition step is a hard step, but it is worthwhile because until we take the recognition step, we will continually struggle with all manner of guilt, anger, hurts, hang-ups, greed, jealousy, failures and emptiness inside due to our disconnectedness from the true God. As long as we are trying to fix ourselves, we will be endlessly frustrated. We will talk more about this in the next post.

Godsteps....Introduction- Part #1

Every journey begins with a single step....just one step. One step can set the direction and tone of your entire journey. Each step sets your direction more and more firmly. Anyone who has traveled or hiked much can tell you that the steps you take determine where you end up. As you continue on your path you find you get closer to your destination. In the same way, we live our lives one step at a time...one breath at a time...one day at a time. But just as we have a first step in our journey we will have a final step.
So, what's will be our destination? In a word, knowing GOD. The steps we take in life every day as Christians determine where we will end up. This blog is a journey for me....a journey of Godsteps moving me beyond my selfishness, hang-ups and excuses and closer and closer to knowing the true and living God. The purpose of this journey is to trace my steps as I grow in my trust in God and grow to know Him more. Knowing and exalting God is, after all, our purpose for living as humans. As Acts 17:28 tells us, "For in him we live and move and exist." The first God step we take must be the step of recognition... We must recognize there is a God and we are not him. Next time we will begin to unpack how we do just that.