One of the traits I love about my wife Monica is her creativity. Recently, she was looking at repurposing an old ladder and making it into a rustic picture frame. It’s great how she sees things for what they could be and not just what they are right now.

God also sees things from a bigger picture than just the ‘here and now’. In the Bible, Gideon was greeted by an angel who said, “Hail to you, mighty man of valor,” even though at the time he was poor and lowly. With the Lord’s repurposing for his life, Gideon became a mighty leader for God’s people.

Don’t just view your life as what it’s like right now. Instead, see things from God’s perspective. You may be stuck in a dead end job or a bad situation, but now’s the time to get excited. With God’s blessing, you too will be repurposed into something great.

If you were to die tonight, where would you go? I ask that question to a lot of people and get a lot of different responses. Many people, even good Christians, don’t have a definite belief that they would get into Heaven. Some of the responses are that they ‘hope they would go to Heaven’ or that they aren’t really sure because of the life they’ve led.

Let me set the record straight, God created you and He loves you very much. He is not willing to see any of His children go down the wrong path and get lost. His love for you is perfect, just as He is perfect. That being said, perfect love also means allowing the person a chance to choose for themselves. Love is a gift and a gift that is forced is no gift at all.

–A few points:
• God knows you are going to have trials and you will make mistakes. That’s OK. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23)
• Those mistakes have consequences, but God loves you and doesn’t want you to loose what He has for you. Romans 6:23 says, “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

–But the greatest part to His love for you is:
• “Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Romans 10:13)

What those scriptures mean is that God is kind. He’s not waiting ‘up there’ with a paddle, just watching to see you screw up. He already knows you will screw up, but He loves you. The key is to repent, which means to change your mind. Repent, turn away from your sins, and believe in what Jesus did for you on that cross. That’s it. You are already accepted by the Creator, all you need to do is accept Him in return.

Call upon Jesus and you will know the way home!

After Jesus rose from the dead, He appeared to His disciples. One disciple in particular, Thomas, became known as the “doubting Thomas.” In the Gospel of John 20:25, the other disciples told Thomas that Jesus has risen, to which he replied, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in His hands and put my finger into the nail marks and into his side, I will not believe.” When Jesus arrived, Thomas did just that. Thomas changed his tune after that and said, “My Lord and My God,” knowing that it was the true Jesus. 

Jesus went to the cross in place of us. He took the punishment that we deserve so that we can enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only perfection gets in there and we are by no means perfect. That is, until the nails were driven into the hands of Jesus Christ on the cross. We will walk into Heaven by the perfecting blood of Jesus washing us clean. He died, was buried, and was raised from the dead, but the nail holes were still there in his earthly body. That’s a representation of ourselves. We are dead to sin, thanks to Jesus on the cross, but the earthly consequences of sin still remain in some cases.

When we sin, it is like driving a nail into a plank of wood. Through our acceptance of Jesus’ payment on the cross and our repentance of our sins, the nail comes out. But, all sin carries an earthly, mortal consequence with it. The nail hole is still there. Repentance means a changing of your mind and will, turning away from your sins and sinful nature. You shall, however, still have those temptations now and again. That’s how the devil gets to you. The devil is an opportunist and will aim for your weak spot time and time again.

If you get a cut on your arm and you don’t constantly cover it up with a sterile dressing, bad things can get into that cut and infect the whole body. If you let that infection get too far, death arrives. The same thing can be said for our souls. Even though Christ took away your sins, you will still possess the earthly remains of that sin. The nail left a hole. The good news is that with a close, personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, you will eventually heal. That hole will become smaller and smaller until one day, you won’t even be able to notice it. That’s not saying the devil won’t keep aiming for you, but through a closer walk with Jesus, it will be harder for the devil and sin to get into you.

     To play a violin, you need to pull a bow across a tight string. The bow is abrasive and pulls on the violin strings over and over. All of the pressure and stress seems like torture to the string, but it’s needed so the violin can play beautiful music. If the string didn’t feel those stresses, you’d never hear a sound out of it. The string would then never be able to fulfill its ultimate purpose.

The same thing goes for us. We want things to be nice and peaceful; live a totally stress free life. However, God couldn’t show His miracles and His goodness unless there was something bad to overcome. You can’t show someone real kindness unless they first go through hard times. The hard times in life bring out our best work.