Candle Light Magazine

Every day is a new universe unto itself. Upon waking one finds oneself in the midst of the creation of God and at the least should acknowledge his presence.

When I awoke this morning the first words out of my mouth were “Good Morning, Lord”. This is both a cordial greeting and praise. By greeting him and praising him as the beginning of my day I set the day on the right path.

I submit to his leadership, I praise him for his person, and I declare my day to be one of honor toward him.

Do I do this every day? Unfortunately the answer is no. Life can be a mundane experience of repetitive monotony. Unless one forms the ritualistic habit of praising God upon rising it can’t be achieved easily. However, if it’s turned into a ritual it becomes religious and therefore loses all meaning.

So what’s the answer? Very simply the answer is to enter into a relationship of trust and harmony with God. Religion may give us a feeling of security. Relationship gives us life.

Who among us has not been caught in the act of doing something wrong? That dread moment when for an instant we made an incorrect choice only to discover that someone was watching. The embarrassment and intensity of the situation varies but the result is the same. We learn the others are watching and that they tend to notice us more when we make mistakes than when we do something right.

Genesis chapter 24 tells us how Abraham, father of many nations, sent his chief servant, Eliezer of Damascus (Gen 15:2), to select a wife for his miracle son, Isaac. God had promised Abraham that his children would be as numerous as the stars of the sky. Abraham was justifiably concerned about the type of woman that would work with his son to produce this twinkling mass of descendants. He gave strict instructions to his servant about how to handle the selection.

Imagine that you were Eliezer. You have been entrusted with everything that your master has and you have been entrusted with selecting the specific woman for your future master. Yes, Eliezer approached this situation with fervent prayer. He asked God to identify the woman as a woman of kindness and a woman that had a servant’s heart.

It was the custom in Mesopotamia between 2000 and 1500 BC for childless couples to adopt an heir. Sometimes that heir was a slave. Adoption contracts stipulated that a natural son subsequently born would replace the adopted son as chief heir. When Isaac was born Eliezer had to readjust his thinking from being an heir to being the servant of the heir. Yet, he remained faithful as chief servant over his master’s possessions. Since he was such a faithful steward, I cannot help but imagine that he must have selected a woman that most closely fit the desires of his heart as well.

Rebekah was faithfully doing her daily job of fetching water. Little did she know that doing what was right “one more time” would bring her a tremendous reward. She could have gathered at the well and gossiped. She could have given Eliezer a drink of water without going the extra mile to offer water to his camels. Not this lady. She had a heart of gold and thoughts of silver. She felt for this man who had traveled far and she felt for his animals.

Rebekah was caught in the act of doing something right. The result of Eliezer’s positive approach was nothing less than the establishment of the Jewish nation and the lineage of our savior. How we approach each day and each task in our day will have epic effects. None of us knows if doing our daily chores with kindness will bring fabulous results. What we do know is that we can approach those tasks with a positive attitude. Rebekah and Eliezer were two positive servants in the family of God. Let’s allow their examples to change our negative approach or reinforce our positive approach.

Sometimes I wake up to a glorious day, whether it’s raining or sunshine. Other times I wake up feeling like I’m being dragged out of the grave while I’m still dead to the world. Yet other times I wake up feeling good and things kinda drag me down hill. Those are the worst.

I know that when it’s a glorious day I’ll be very productive. I really like being productive. I know that on those days when I feel like one of the walking dead it’s just a question of tossing several cups of coffee down my throat before I wake up and get something done.

When I wake up feeling good and things go down hill I know there is some unseen thing going wrong. The back of my mind is trying to tell me that I need to change something.

Often this happens when I already know I should change but I’ve dismissed it in a state of denial. It’s not that I’m lazy about changing. It’s that I don’t want to change. I’ve cuddled up into my cozy comfort zone and I don’t wanna put down my hot cocoa and live some other way.

That’s exactly what happens to unsaved people who hear the gospel. They’ve comfortably sized up their lives and they don’t want to move into a different arena. Most of them are comfortable in their lifestyle choices and to actually listen to the gospel and act upon it they have to uncuddle.

Yes, it’s good news to them. Immortality! Eternal Life! Who wouldn’t want that? But it comes at a very dear price. The gospel requires us to change. It requires us to superimpose another life system on our own. That new lifestyle pattern will crush anything that doesn’t harmonize with it.

So, how do they deal with this uncomfortable gospel. Many of them shove it down into the back of their mind and ignore it. Our minds don’t like that, though, so it bubbles back up to the surface from time to time, forcing us to reexamine the issue.

Our brains are designed to make choices. Unexamined choices will drive us nuts if we let them. It’s better to face the issue and make a choice. That’s the only way I can handle it.

When I wake up in a good mood and it starts slipping away from me I have to examine my life to see what I’ve put off and refused to resolve. I face the problem. I make a choice. I live with the consequences.

I do that because I know that by not making a choice, I’m making a choice. If I choose to put off accepting the good news of the gospel until later I’m actually choosing to reject the offer of eternal life God has provided.

What choice have you made regarding the gospel? How is your day progressing? I hope you’re having a great day!

Ah yes, it’s that time of year again where we take stock of our lives.

The question is, why do we only do this once a year? It’s probably because that’s what everyone else is doing. The reality is that every day of our life we have the opportunity to begin again. God has a new year in store for us daily.

I like to think of each day as a universe to itself. In the morning I wake up (am born). Through the day I live my life. At night I go to sleep (die).

By viewing each day as an isolated universe one can get quite a perspective on things. There’s no time to spend worrying. There’s only time to be spent doing what needs to be done.

By getting things done on a daily basis we accomplish quite a bit. Most people that worry don’t actually DO anything to resolve their problem. They sit around in fear focusing on the problem instead of walking in faith taking the necessary steps (doing) to resolve the problem.

Am I against New Year’s resolutions? Absolutely not. I’m against the idea of limiting our resolutions to one day a year. I’m also against the lack of commitment to those changes within the first month.

People that bring about real change in their lives fail miserably. They try, they fail, they try again, they fail again. The key is that they keep trying in spite of failing. Eventually they fail less and succeed in changing for longer periods of time. One day they realize they’ve succeeded in bringing about change in their life.

Christians are just people with a little extra help. We get saved, we sin, we repent, we sin again. Eventually, as we keep repenting and resisting the sin in our lives we accomplish change. One day we awake to realize we’ve overcome that sin in our life. Then God allows us to move on to the next item in our maturing process.

So what’s all this got to do with New Year’s resolutions? Everything!

Take stock of your life. Plan your New Year’s resolution. Start working on that change. DON’T GIVE UP. When you fail (because we all fail) just realize this is part of the process of change. Nothing that humans are involved in is perfect.

Change requires failure. We learn more from failing than succeeding. Expect it. Embrace it. Use it.

(Galatians 6:9 KJV) And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.

I know I’ve been away for a while and haven’t posted. But I’ve picked up a new piece of software that’s going to help me.

I’m praising God right now because I’m using a piece of software called Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Since I’m on Windows Vista and I had to upgrade to version 9.5. I still have to train the software a little bit but it’s not too bad. In the past I’ve had other versions but they didn’t work the way I wanted them to so I never took the time to do anything with them.

God has blessed me. Hopefully that will translate into me doing a lot more blog posting. Time will tell. We’ll wait and see. Keep me in your prayers. And I’ll keep you in mine.

The fact of the matter is that more and more people are liking less and less church. This can clearly be seen in the lagging church attendance around the country. The blunt reality is the church is viewed as less relevant because it isn’t making a difference in people’s lives.

Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not putting down churches or church people. There are a lot of really great people in a lot of really great churches. I’d love to get to know all of them. Really! A lot of these church goers have good hears, minds and intentions. They’d work their fingers to the bone to build the kingdom of God…if they only knew what work to do.

The answer to this problem is loving action. What to do isn’t the problem if you’re doing something. As the saying goes, it’s easier to change the direction of a rolling boulder than a stationary boulder.

Will you make mistakes if you do something less than perfect? Of course you will. Mistakes are how we LEARN what to do. We learn more from our mistakes than we do from our successes.

(Ecclesiastes 9:10 NIV) Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.

Death comes to us all. Be about your Father’s work while you still have time.

(Romans 14:17-18 NIV) For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, {18} because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men.

Peace and Joy are two commodities that are very precious in our world.  They’re precious because they’re hard to attain.  Peace is the easiness of mind and spirit.  It’s the lack of harassment.  Joy is the foundation of happiness. 

The lack of these two powerful conditions in our life is a clear indicator that we’re somehow out of line with God’s will for our life.  God wants the best for us.  When we’re harassed we can’t hope to achieve clarity about what he wants us to do.  Without a foundational happiness there can be no enJOYment of his purpose in our life. 

The healthy mind and spirit embraces God’s best in order to achieve God’s best.  If you examine yourself and find that you’re not experiencing God’s best in your life take a couple minutes to talk with God.  Ask him to give you peace and joy so you can achieve his purpose in your life.

Tags: peace, joy, happiness, God, Christian, prayer

(Galatians 5:1 NIV)  It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

Christianity is a question of living freely, not a question of forcing others to live by my rules.  Jesus came to set us free from all this bondage that others put on us, and yes, even we put it upon ourselves.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating the fine art of chaotic living.  There need to be societal rules, laws.  When you’re dealing with the things of the world you need to address those laws and abide by them if they don’t contradict your faith in God.

What I’m talking about is relaxing into your Christian walk and enjoying the freedom that God has given you.  It’s the freedom to quit sinning.  It’s also the freedom to realize that everyone sins and it’s not a big deal to God.

God isn’t some old man sitting in heaven with a stick waiting to play smack the sinner.  He’s a loving father who carefully watches what we do so he can help us grow up and become like him.  Graceful and loving.

Fortunately he’s a good dad and gives us the freedom to make mistakes.  You do realize that sin is just a spiritual mistake, right?

By giving us this freedom he allows us to learn for ourselves that his ‘rules’ aren’t like other rules.  They were designed to give us the best possible life experience that’s available.

While it may seem at times that riotous living is a cool lifestyle it really isn’t.  Those who indulge themselves by violating the ‘rules’ God has given us eventually find out that they feel empty, bored, or depressed.

It’s like when we go to one of those family outings and end up eating a lot of sweets.  Oh they go down real nice but they don’t sustain you very well.  Often they end up giving you a stomach ache and other symptoms that aren’t very nice.

Sin is fun.  Ask anyone in Vegas!  Sin will consume us, though, if we bask in its glorious light for very long.  It’s up to you.  God has given you the choice to follow whatever path you want.  He’s also given you the instructions that it is bondage and that you’re free (if you’re a Christian).

It’s all about choices.

technorati tags:grace, choice, freedom, lifestyle, christianity, chaos

If you’ve visited before you can clearly see that Candle Light Magazine is under construction.  Many of the things we had on the site were nothing more than clutter.  Many of the links were not working.  The site was left in disrepair because I just didn’t have the time to manage it.
I’ve made the following changes

• Installed new blogging software
• Removed unnecessary files and folders
• Removed advertising (For Now.  I may add it later)
• Removed reciprocal link area
• Removed free articles
• Generally spruced things up

You’ll find me posting a lot more frequently now that I’m going through a major overhaul.  Please bookmark the site or add it to your rss feeder.
If you have any suggestions please feel free to let me know.

technorati tags:blogging, update

(1 Corinthians 12:26-27 NIV) If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. {27} Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve talked with Christians privately who were suffering. The one thing they all seem to have in common is a fear of telling other Christians that their lives aren’t perfect.

I remember when I was a teenager. I walked around thinking that everyone else was perfect and I was weird somehow. Then I grew up a bit and found out that everyone else was just as imperfect as I was.

Somehow once people realize that they simply think it was a teenager growing stage. The fact is that everyone is imperfect. They were imperfect as teenagers and they’re still imperfect.

Our lives get messed up, twisted around, and things happen that we can’t possibly anticipate. That’s why God has provided grace for us. It’s there for us WHEN we fail, not IF we fail. Without his grace we couldn’t function within his will.

If you’re one who shies away from those Christians who have bad marriages, or are sinning, or just are too immature, I encourage you to feel their suffering. They need God’s grace and often his grace is only expressed through your loving guidance in their lives toward his will for their lives.

technorati tags:christian, suffering, grace