Lent Week 7 Day 40

My reading today is a story about someone being in Easter and Christmas plays at school and how playing a peasant had an effect on her. She didn’t just play the role, she let the songs they sung penetrate her spirit and let them speak to her soul. She came to the realization that Jesus’ life that He offers is for EVERYONE! She saw that Jesus is the first to be resurrected and all of His followers will follow Him in resurrection also. And lastly she asks herself how is she denying self and being resurrected right now this Easter? I just read in my Not A Fan book that dying to self is putting Jesus first. He gave some interesting examples. It’s choosing Jesus over family and career goals. It’s choosing Jesus over getting drunk, over looking at porn. Choosing Jesus over a redecorated house. Choosing Jesus over what people think about you.

Lent to Repent

Day 40

The scripture reading for today is Romans 8:31-39 and it’s talking about how we cannot be separated from the love of God because of Jesus. We have it all in and through Jesus Christ.

Ann says: Today I will be astonished that because of Christ, hope rises from dead places, impossible stones can be rolled away, all the sad things are becoming undone.

What I ‘m learning is something can be known by head knowledge but it doesn’t become real and alive until it is heart knowledge. When the head knowledge makes a transfer to heart knowledge then we have our “A HA” moments. I read something the other day I never read before in the Bible. It says Jesus is the first to be raised which means we will follow. 1 Corinthians 15:20-22,  But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. ²¹ For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. ²² For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. We follow Him in life on earth, in death and in resurrection. It is finally in my heart that I really know death is an illusion. I won’t die, I will live! I’m beginning to see God’s Kingdom in my minds eye. I feel myself making the transfer. I heard John Bevere say yesterday, Jesus doesn’t want a dating relationship where you know things about that person. He wants a marriage relationship where you are intimate with each other and know everything about that person. This is what I want, what I choose, to be intimate with Jesus. To really be one of His and when I pass I want to be known for loving Jesus.  Everyone will know I went to be with Him.

 

Day 21- Go about doing good as Jesus did.

Day 22- It’s the sin God hates!

Day 23- True beauty comes from a clean heart that sees God

Day 24- Have faith Jesus is the Truth

Day 25- Fast from your sinful nature

Day 26- Believe Jesus, deny self, walk in the Kingdom

Day 27- Follow the Holy Spirit, return to God

Day 28- True worship connects you to God’s grace

Day 29- You have to follow the Holy Spirit continually to keep fear out

Day 30- Fear is flesh, Faith is spirit

Day 31- Thirst for God and put your hope in Him alone

Day 32- Find God’s light then live in it

Day 33- Live the shape of the cross

Day 34- Stay humble and pray

Day- 35 Don’t be afraid, watch what I say

Day 36- We have a new beginning every morning, give from the heart

Day 37- Rejoice over and over, be at peace

Day 38- Be saved and live it out

Day 39- Give thanks for all God’s gifts and pray for a heart of flesh

Day 40- Everyone is invited, choose Jesus

   

 

A Story To Make You Believe In God

The Life of Pi is a movie about a boy’s journey to God. Now I know there are movie summaries out there stating things about the animals representing people and that’s exactly my point. They weren’t people! The movie is trying to get us to see the impossible! The investigators at the end make Pi tell a story that isn’t true, one that’s believable they say. This is the kind of synopsis it got in real life too! Just as the movie states, religion is darkness.

When Pi was a boy he stumbled into a church and saw Jesus on the cross. I think it was a priest who explained Jesus to Pi. His response was, what kind of love is that? Meaning who would love someone so much to die for them?

Then Pi is older and he finds himself in a bad storm on an ocean liner with his family. They all perish but Pi survives along with these animals in the life boat. It ends up just being Pi and the tiger though. While he is out at sea floating around in the ocean with this tiger, he learns something. Tending to the tiger gives him meaning and purpose. Shade becomes his greatest joy. He experienced God out there. God gave him provision with flying fish! He found an island that gave him some relief from the ocean but it was made known to him to get back out there if he wanted to be found.

When they hit land the tiger disappears into the jungle and is gone forever. Pi is just lying on the beach and watches the tiger disappear in the jungle. He feels sadness because him and the tiger had an experience together. They survived. He was connected to the tiger and now he was gone. All too soon though he is found by some people and taken to the hospital. I won’t go into detail about the movie itself, all the wonders and miracles because I don’t want to spoil it so I’m going to get to the main reason I’m writing about it.

What the Holy Spirit showed me through this movie is the stories in the Bible are viewed in the same way. They get tagged as being a metaphor for something when actually they are true and real! It seems unbelievable but it’s true! In the movie these investigators come to visit Pi in the hospital and they want the story of what happened to him. Pi tells them what actually happened, just as we see it in the film. Well, Pi’s version doesn’t line up with their reality. They wanted to hear THEIR TRUTH, not THE TRUTH. They thought Pi was crazy! Isn’t that how we are looked at, those who believe in the supernatural? They wanted a simple believable story without things they haven’t seen before. They asked Pi for the truth. Pi already told the truth but he then had to make up a story! So that they wouldn’t look like fools, they said! Pi had told the truth about the tiger, but they wanted a story THEY could believe, not the TRUTH!

This movie was a journey with God for this boy. He experienced God and no one would believe him. Has this happened to you? What happens to me is, I experience God and it seems like it doesn’t register with the other person. That’s because it has to be YOUR experience!

So it is with the Bible. The stories in the Bible seem “far fetched” and “out there” but that doesn’t make them false. God is bigger than us. His ways are higher than our ways as it says in the Bible! At the end of the movie we are asked to choose which story do we want to believe (prefer)?

I choose to believe the far fetched story! It’s miraculous and amazing! The amazing story is the TRUTH because God is amazing, He is everything wonderful! This story is like the ones in the Bible, they are unbelievable and yet they are true because God does do the impossible! He is God! Believe it! Why believe the ordinary and what makes sense to our natural minds when you can live above this world in the extraordinary, where God is! I choose to live above, put my thoughts on things above and unseen to be able to experience God, on earth! Your Kingdom Come to earth as it is in heaven! We can experience it here if we just open our minds and hearts and allow ourselves to be with Him! He is all around us, waiting for US to acknowledge HIM.

Just because we can’t figure it out by our natural mind doesn’t mean it isn’t there or true. God is there whether you believe it or not. I choose to believe! I know He is real because like Pi, I have experienced Him for myself. If you question the Bible or God, start searching to experience God. Mere knowledge does not compare to being filled with His Spirit and knowing by experience that He is God. Ephesians 3:19, and [that you may come] to know [practically, through personal experience] the love of Christ which far surpasses [mere] knowledge [without experience], that you may be filled up [throughout your being] to all the fullness of God [so that you may have the richest experience of God’s presence in your lives, completely filled and flooded with God Himself].

In the Bible it says when you search for Him like lost treasure, He will be found by you. Remember a pure heart sees God!

A little side note: At the time I watched this movie I had a blog called My Kaleidoscope is Jesus. At the end of the movie during the credits there were kaleidoscope images. I took this as a sign and when I told my husband my interpretation of the movie I felt God’s presence and began to cry. God wants us to know He is REAL and the Bible is CREDIBLE!