IN CHRIST

Posted on February 7, 2016 by randscallawayffm

On a mission…

There is no greater blessing than to introduce my family members to my friends and acquaintances. I love them so much and I am proud of who they are. I am honored that they call me mom because I love them so much. Randy and I have three grown children who married wonderful people. They have given us crazy, creative, adorable grandchildren. We ARE family as the song goes.

Are they perfect? Mostly. (Smiling.) But there are times when one or two of them might tease a little too hard, push, pull, or manipulate the emotions of another and the disagreements arise until all is settled down again by loving, disciplined parents, as was taught to them.

At the height of the raised voices or merely sarcastic comments that hurt, it hurts our heart. We love them so much and we want them to love each other as much as we love them.

So, it is with God. He loves us, REALLY loves you and me. It breaks His heart to see us fight over silly things that won’t matter in a few days, weeks or years. It breaks His heart when we cut each other off at the knees with our comments. We are GOD’s family in Christ, because of Jesus Christ. As sad as disagreements make us when our kids misbehave or fight with each other, it grieves God more. God came down, sent His Son, whom He loved, to show us how to love each other well, in the “most excellent way” as Paul puts it. That way to love is unconditional. No matter what is said or done to us, we love them back, We never stop loving…that’s love without conditions.

I think all these thoughts and my heart swells with more love for my brothers and sisters in Christ as we read the next passage Paul writes to his brothers and sisters in Galatia.

Galatians 3, The Message
In Christ’s Family
28-29 In Christ’s family there can be no division into Jew and non-Jew, slave and free, male and female. Among us you are all equal. That is, we are all in a common relationship with Jesus Christ. Also, since you are Christ’s family, then you are Abraham’s famous “descendant,” heirs according to the covenant promises.

What do we learn?
–We are heirs WITH Christ! We ARE family. As we worship this morning, think on these things about the people sitting all around you in corporate worship. See them as FAMILY, in Christ. See them through our Papa’s eyes, God, our Father in Heaven, as He looks down with smiles on us!
–Encourage each other.
–We are all in this together! In Christ!

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Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you for Your Word that encourages us with just a few short sentences this morning. “In Christ” with Christ living in all of us who believe opens our eyes to see more clearly. The closer we get to You, the closer we will get to each other. You love us. We love You. AND, In Christ, we love each other the same because in You we ARE the same. Wow, thank you for loving us without conditions. Continue to be with us this moring. Help us to stay focused on this thought….In Jesus Name, Amen

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WHO DO YOU TRUST?

Posted on February 5, 2016 by randscallawayffm

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WHO DO YOU TRUST?

Posted on February 5, 2016 by randscallawayffm

On a mission…but first, consider our “point of origin”, where our salvation begins…

About a million years ago, it seems, I remember a show, in name only, because I either was not allowed to watch it as a child or I was outside playing as was my habit. I did not like being indoors except to eat and sleep. Who Do You Trust? was a game show which aired in the fifties. Apparently, a significant number of young viewers coming home from school watched it.

The series was initially emceed by Johnny Carson. Three couples competed on each show, nearly always a man and a woman chosen for their unique backgrounds; the announcer would introduce couples one at a time, and Carson spent more time interviewing the contestants than quizzing them.

In the quiz portion, Carson would tell the male contestant the category of the upcoming question; the man would then have to decide whether to answer the question himself or “trust” the woman to do so. Yikes…Randy and I would probably have failed in the early rounds of this game!

“Who do you trust?” is a VERY important, faith evaluating question that we must ask ourselves every day…sometimes every hour. We are bombarded with voices of opinions on the media, the social media, at our workplaces and even at the local grocery store! WHO do we trust? In good times and the bad, really, WHO do we trust ultimately? Ourselves? OR…

Paul stops the “crazy Galatians, (I almost hear him lovingly say, “bless your hearts, THINK!), with a lesson in trust. We cannot work our way to heaven. He explains…Jesus, once more and HIS work for us and in us as HE transforms us day by day.

Galatians 3, The Message
3 You crazy Galatians! Did someone put a hex on you? Have you taken leave of your senses? Something crazy has happened, for it’s obvious that you no longer have the crucified Jesus in clear focus in your lives. His sacrifice on the cross was certainly set before you clearly enough.

2-4 Let me put this question to you: How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God’s Message to you? Are you going to continue this craziness? For only crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what was begun by God. If you weren’t smart enough or strong enough to begin it, how do you suppose you could perfect it? Did you go through this whole painful learning process for nothing? It is not yet a total loss, but it certainly will be if you keep this up!

5-6 Answer this question: Does the God who lavishly provides you with his own presence, his Holy Spirit, working things in your lives you could never do for yourselves, does he do these things because of your strenuous moral striving or because you trust him to do them in you?

Let’s pause, and meditate on this question…”Does the God who lavishly provides you with his own presence, his Holy Spirit, working things in your lives you could never do for yourselves, does he do these things because of your strenuous moral striving OR because you trust him to do them in you?

11-12 The obvious impossibility of carrying out such a moral program should make it plain that no one can sustain a relationship with God that way. The person who lives in right relationship with God does it by embracing what God arranges for him. Doing things for God is the opposite of entering into what God does for you. Habakkuk had it right: “The person who believes God, is set right by God—and that’s the real life.” Rule-keeping does not naturally evolve into living by faith, but only perpetuates itself in more and more rule-keeping, a fact observed in Scripture: “The one who does these things [rule-keeping] continues to live by them.”

13-14 Christ redeemed us from that self-defeating, cursed life by absorbing it completely into himself. Do you remember the Scripture that says, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”? That is what happened when Jesus was nailed to the cross: He became a curse, and at the same time dissolved the curse. And now, because of that, the air is cleared and we can see that Abraham’s blessing is present and available for non-Jews, too. We are all able to receive God’s life, his Spirit, in and with us by believing—just the way Abraham received it.

25-27 But now you have arrived at your destination: By faith in Christ you are in direct relationship with God. Your baptism in Christ was not just washing you up for a fresh start. It also involved dressing you in an adult faith wardrobe—Christ’s life, the fulfillment of God’s original promise.

These passages are only the highlights, read all of chapter 3 slowly, let it sink in, chew on it and let it bless your socks off today.

SO….who do we trust?
–Christ the foundation of our faith, risen from the dead and lives in us! Christ in us, how can it be? He loves us that much!
–Jesus Christ set us right before God. No one else could do that
–Jesus did for us what we cannot do for ourselves.

SO…who do we trust? The rules, the opinions or Jesus Christ?

I know whom I have believed

Dear Heavenly Father, There is so much more here that we can take in all at once. But this one thing I know…(making an old hymn personal for You, dear Heavenly Father…
I know not why Your wondrous grace
to me You have made known,
nor why, unworthy, Christ in love
redeemed me for Your own.
Refrain:
But I know whom I have believed,
and am persuaded that You are able
to keep that which I’ve committed
unto You against that day.

Continue to do what you must to transform me to be all you intended for me to be.
In Jesus Name, Amen I believe!

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PASTOR’S RETREAT GONE WILD

Posted on February 4, 2016 by randscallawayffm

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PASTOR’S RETREAT GONE WILD

Posted on February 4, 2016 by randscallawayffm

On a mission…

Randy and I have been to many pastors’ retreats in the past. To say that we enjoyed them would not be honest. Here is the reason why, and I am just now opening up to share this out loud. When pastor’s get together, it begins with the usual question. “So, how’s “your” church doing?” Followed by, “How many do you have now?” The retreat then would follow a pattern of “one-up -manship” while trying sugar-coat perceived failures in ministry.

You come seeking rest and affirmation. You go away feeling “less than” you were before coming. You want and need to be affirmed in what you are doing to advance the gospel of Jesus, to make sure that what you are preaching is indeed God’s Truth. You do not want to play the political positioning game to seek higher, nobler stances in the religious organization. We seek integrity.

Paul, a few years after his conversion, met with advisers, other pastor leaders, seeking affirmation, to compare notes, and to make sure that he was telling God’s Truth of the Person he adored, Jesus Christ. What he saw in Peter, disturbed him. He called him on it…out of love and with a spirit of Truth-seeking.

Galatians 2, The Message
What Is Central?
2 1-5 Fourteen years after that first visit, Barnabas and I went up to Jerusalem and took Titus with us. I went to clarify with them what had been revealed to me. At that time I placed before them exactly what I was preaching to the non-Jews. I did this in private with the leaders, those held in esteem by the church, so that our concern would not become a controversial public issue, marred by ethnic tensions, exposing my years of work to denigration and endangering my present ministry.

11-13 Later, when Peter came to Antioch, I had a face-to-face confrontation with him because he was clearly out of line. Here’s the situation. Earlier, before certain persons had come from James, Peter regularly ate with the non-Jews. But when that conservative group came from Jerusalem, he cautiously pulled back and put as much distance as he could manage between himself and his non-Jewish friends. That’s how fearful he was of the conservative Jewish clique that’s been pushing the old system of circumcision. Unfortunately, the rest of the Jews in the Antioch church joined in that hypocrisy so that even Barnabas was swept along in the charade.

14 But when I saw that they were not maintaining a steady, straight course according to the Message, I spoke up to Peter in front of them all: “If you, a Jew, live like a non-Jew when you’re not being observed by the watchdogs from Jerusalem, what right do you have to require non-Jews to conform to Jewish customs just to make a favorable impression on your old Jerusalem cronies?”

15-16 We Jews know that we have no advantage of birth over “non-Jewish sinners.” We know very well that we are not set right with God by rule-keeping but only through personal faith in Jesus Christ. How do we know? We tried it—and we had the best system of rules the world has ever seen! Convinced that no human being can please God by self-improvement, we believed in Jesus as the Messiah so that we might be set right before God by trusting in the Messiah, not by trying to be good.

17-18 Have some of you noticed that we are not yet perfect? (No great surprise, right?) And are you ready to make the accusation that since people like me, who go through Christ in order to get things right with God, aren’t perfectly virtuous, Christ must therefore be an accessory to sin? The accusation is frivolous. If I was “trying to be good,” I would be rebuilding the same old barn that I tore down. I would be acting as a charlatan.

19-21 What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn’t work. So I quit being a “law man” so that I could be God’s man. Christ’s life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not “mine,” but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that.

Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God’s grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.

What do we learn? A ton…this is only the tip of the iceberg…

–Sometimes we ask the wrong questions. Instead of how’s your church, ask where has God led you and what are you learning as He leads You? What do you believe about…study the scripture together, has it out, discover the freedom of God’s Truth.
–Confront real issues with grace, mercy and unconditional love.
–Call each other on fake notions and actions in a Spirit of love and Truth.
–Seek trusted advisers who will tell you the truth.
–Ultimately trust GOD as the final answer who gives us the freedom to live as HIS woman or man of God.
–NEVER forget Christ lives in us!
–Don’t live to impress God or to be merely impressed with Christ. Love God with all your heart, all your mind and all your soul. Then dare to move out of the comfort zones of our religion to discover a free, forever, growing relationship with Jesus Christ our Savior AND our LORD with his constant Presence living in us. Wow!
–We will never be “good enough” but Christ is more than enough for us!

IT-IS-NO-LONGER-IWHO-LIVE

Dear Heavenly Father, Wow. I will be thinking about this all day long. You have stirred my inner heart. My mind is reeling. Teach us more. We repent of asking wrong questions and trying to perfect. Impressing others is just not important to me. Loving You, knowing You more is central to my life. I believe! I trust in You alone. Continue to be with us, go with us, I pray…
In Jesus Name, Amen

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TRANSFORMATION

Posted on February 3, 2016 by randscallawayffm

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TRANSFORMATION

Posted on February 3, 2016 by randscallawayffm

On a mission…

“My, how you have grown!” As kids, remember hearing that at funerals and family reunions? Well, most of you may have heard it, not so much me…I have been short all of my life. What was mostly said to me was, “Wow, you look just like your mom” or “how old are you now, twelve?”. I would respond, “No, I married and have three kids”. Hello, don’t you see my life has changed?

Physical changes are a bit easier to see than transformations of the heart. It seems Paul’s reputation as a killer of Christians followed him all of his ministry. We read his letters to churches that open with an explanation story of his transformation. “I was a life that has been changed from the inside out by Jesus Christ”, he declares often. I wonder if we “church people” are so dull to not recognize the transformation process in each other as much as we should. “My, how you’ve grown…from the inside out!” might be a more appropriate response to encourage others. Mm. Another encouragement could be, “I see Jesus in you when…”

See what you can think of as a way to encourage someone else who God is transforming right before your eyes today as we read God’s story in Paul to the churches.

Galatians 1, The Message

10-12 Do you think I speak this strongly in order to manipulate crowds? Or curry favor with God? Or get popular applause? If my goal was popularity, I wouldn’t bother being Christ’s slave. Know this—I am most emphatic here, friends—this great Message I delivered to you is not mere human optimism. I didn’t receive it through the traditions, and I wasn’t taught it in some school. I got it straight from God, received the Message directly from Jesus Christ.

13-16 I’m sure that you’ve heard the story of my earlier life when I lived in the Jewish way. In those days I went all out in persecuting God’s church. I was systematically destroying it. I was so enthusiastic about the traditions of my ancestors that I advanced head and shoulders above my peers in my career. Even then God had designs on me. Why, when I was still in my mother’s womb he chose and called me out of sheer generosity! Now he has intervened and revealed his Son to me so that I might joyfully tell non-Jews about him.

We are stopping here to evaluate our own progress as transformed lives. What do we learn?
–God has designs on us from the womb. “He knew us before we were formed”. (Psalm 139 and Jeremiah 1:5)
–Our transformation is God’s story in us, running freely through us to mold and shape us into what he intended for us to be and do from the beginning of time.
–Allow and recognize transformation power of God in others. Be encouragers of this change. NOTICE…and praise God!
–Reveal Jesus to others because of the transformation He did for us!

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Dear Heavenly Father, I am a life that was changed…transforming daily into what You intended from the beginning. Thank you for never stopping Your work in me. Help me to recognize Your transformation of others and encourage them, too! Thank you for not leaving as we were but transforming us into what You created us to be. Hallelujah!
In Jesus Name, Amen

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WHO DO WE REALLY WORK FOR?

Posted on February 2, 2016 by randscallawayffm

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WHO DO WE REALLY WORK FOR?

Posted on February 2, 2016 by randscallawayffm

On a mission…

coffee and JesusSometimes I ask myself, why do I sit down with a cup of Cheerios and a mug of coffee early each morning and write? Why do I first “spill my guts out” to the Lord who I believe with all my hearts listens to his needy child? Why do I open the pages of my Bible to see what God has for me, and then for us? And most of all, why are hundreds of you checking in to read God’s Word with me? By the way, I pray for all you each morning, thanking God for you, realizing that we are not alone in this battle against the powerless prince of darkness. We just need to realize it.

Why? Paul explains why in the first paragraph to the people of Galatia…we are God-commissioned. I am God-commissioned and compelled by Him to get up early, giving my first thoughts to Him, to get my “marching orders” for the day, and then to prayerfully write in ways that might help others know Christ more and be rescued, too. It is by His amazing grace that we are helped, healed, and given peace through the storms with His Light for our journeys. That Light also shines on all the dark places of our soul so we will repent and be made whole. Focusing on His Light reflects brightly on our faces. That’s why. It’s all about Jesus, our Messiah, Savior and Lord.

Galatians 1, The Message

1-5 I, Paul, and my companions in faith here, send greetings to the Galatian churches. My authority for writing to you does not come from any popular vote of the people, nor does it come through the appointment of some human higher-up. It comes directly from Jesus the Messiah and God the Father, who raised him from the dead. I’m God-commissioned. So I greet you with the great words, grace and peace! We know the meaning of those words because Jesus Christ rescued us from this evil world we’re in by offering himself as a sacrifice for our sins. God’s plan is that we all experience that rescue. Glory to God forever! Oh, yes!

What do we learn?
–We work for God because of our devotion and love for Him.
–We do what He asks without thought of what the world thinks.
–We cannot do anything less, though we try sometimes, He always pulls His children back to Center and focus on Him.
–We cannot be silent. God’s plan is that we ALL experience His rescue.
–All glory, honor and praise to God, our Father, who loves us more than we can fathom or imagine.
–We will spend forever learning how deep the Father’s love is for us.

just a little talk with Jesus

Dear Heavenly Father, Oh, Lord, how patient you are with us! Thank you for your salvation. Thank you for your grace and mercy wrapped up in Your unconditional love for us. I am overwhelmed by You this morning. May we meditate on Your Word, Your love, all day long and into the night. Give us this day our daily manna with our mugs. Thank you for other believers, partners, in the faith. Bless them and greatly encourage all of them this morning. Glory to You, dear Father in Heaven. Go with us, still…In Jesus Name, Amen

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GOD’S GIFT OF FREEDOM

Posted on February 1, 2016 by randscallawayffm

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