*Moving On Up

Don and I traveled to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho to attend a Convoy of Hope conference to help raise money for their upcoming projects. I was so excited and I really needed this week to get away and make a dent in this book that I have been playing around with. I have found myself doodling instead of writing and couldn't wait to enjoy the scenery and looked forward to a great view of this renowned Coeur d'Alene lake to give me inspiration. You know where this is going, right?

Well we checked in and it was the smallest room I have EVER stayed in. My bathroom and closet at home is bigger than the whole room! I was disappointed but did not speak it to Don. I am sure he was wondering as well. haha.  I didn't want to be ungrateful. So I anxiously went to the window and looked out the beautiful wooden blinds and what did I see? You will NEVER believe it! Our room is one of six rooms out of the 350 in the resort that has windows to the INSIDE POOL! yes you heard me...INSIDE POOL!  I was at that point unable to contain my excitement. I looked at Don in horror and he said, "Well lets hope it closes early?" It didn't. The lovely inside pool...which I will admit is quite exquisite opened at the blessed hour of 6am and closes at 11pm.

Have you ever wanted to yell out about an injustice and just complain? You have every right too...anyone else would, right?  I wondered why I was the chosen one of the 6 unfortunate people to get this type of room at a hotel that I might add... is sold out? We turned on the TV very loud to mask the hall noise as well as the pool noise and tried to make the best of it. We laughed about it all. The distance from our door to the window is only about 20 feet and we sat on the bed as the bell boy barely could fit all of our luggage in our room. It was incredible!

I bit my tongue many times because what I wanted to do was just spew out things about the room that I didn't like. Now lets NOT forget that we are in one of the most beautiful places in the country for a week! Outside has smells I have never smelled before...that is called FRESH air! The scent of the trees and the beautiful surroundings is enough to make you swoon! Plus we are here to help the unfortunate starving and under-privileged people of the world with Convoy of Hope....and I am thinking of calling the front office to complain. I should be ASHAMED!!!
 

But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.     

                                                                                Galatians 5:22-23 The Message

 

I truly believe that God cares about even the little things in life and He is looking for every opportunity to bless us and sometimes we mess that up with our mouth or actions. This morning we noticed that the glass shower door does not close and when you use the shower water gets all over the floor. I told Don that I would call about it. I called the front desk at 6:20am because I just couldn't sleep anymore and Don went to play golf already. A very nice man named Jacob answered and I told him about the shower door and that it needed repaired and it looked like water damage already to the wall in the bathroom. I was friendly and nice and really wanted to continue the conversation about all the things that I didn't like but He surprised me when He asked me a question:" Mrs Gibson. How is your room overall?" I stammered. I had a zillion things at the tip of my tongue I could say; including the sight of the lovely elderly gentlemen that was sitting in the hot tub this morning eating a banana in a speedo and talking VERY loudly on his cell phone at 6:10am! But before I could say anything Jacob said,  "The reason why I ask is that we had a lot of complaints from that area on the 2nd floor with noise from the pool and the hall...we had a few people call last night." I agreed with him and told him that the sound of screaming from the pool was a little bit hair-raising. He said to me, "Well we had a cancellation early this morning and I am going to move you up to the 17th floor Park Tower. You are so lucky to have called because it just happened. Would that be okay with you? It has a fabulous view of the lake and even a living room and a gas fireplace." I felt faint and managed to choke out, "Okay." We will call you in a few hours to let you know when it is ready. Is there anything else we can do for you today Mrs Gibson?" Ummmm no I think you did just fine. Thank you so much! I hung up the phone and was amazed and somewhat speechless. I wasn't lucky at all...I was blessed.

 

I am not saying that I live perfectly and that I deserve favor all the time....I do not. But God continually speaks to us in the little things and this morning I truly believe that He was telling me that having a heart of love and grace and extending mercy is His heart. We can find the negative in anything but what is hard is to realize is that if we put our focus on the wrong we will never see the fabulous positive things that are right in front of us. If we live God's way He will bring gifts into this life that is so sweet and meaningful...that you would have never believed it or even have thought to ask for it.

 

Excuse me now while I pack my things up with a smile on my face as I hum "I am moving on up to the eastside to the deluxe apartment in the sky. I finally got a piece of the piiiiiiiie". (The Jefferson's theme song) haha

 

 

 

Adjust That Crown

 

Jonna

 

 

                  

 

Blessed AND Highly Favored

We toss the term "I am blessed and highly favored" around these days kinda like "What would Jesus do?" years back. It's catchy and people tend to say it when they are being blessed and want to give the credit to God. Sometimes I use it when things are going not so well and I just declare it into my circumstances. This term is definitely truth and is a promise that God has given us as His children. We ARE blessed and highly favored!

The proclamation "blessed and highly favored" was made in Luke 1 when the angel of the Lord came
to Mary and told her that she was to have a son. I don't know about you but if I was an unmarried pregnant girl back in the Bible days I don't think I would be considered blessed. I don't think this got her favor of a close parking place at the local mall either! People would definitely be judging and possibly be disowned by family and friends. This was scandal and drama of epic proportions! When Mary was looked at by others it had to have been hard to explain her favor or her blessing and not just when she was young....but possibly for the rest of her life.

" the angel said to her, “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!”But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this was. Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. ³¹ And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.”     Luke 1:28-33

What Mary knew was that she was carrying the presence of God; the savior of the world. So she could hold her head high even amidst the whispers because she had the knowledge of that promise.
Nothing in her outside circumstances had changed...this "gift" didn't make her richer or give her any kudos or material favor of any kind. What Mary rejoices about is not what God has GIVEN her but what God has BECOME in her....blessed and highly favored.

 

When God promises to bless you, he is saying, ‘I’m going to make you into everything I’ve
ever meant for you to be". It means that God is taking every day and every single thing that
happens in it—good or bad—to make you stronger, to mend whatever is broken inside, to
change you into the person you were always meant to be. The blessing is what God is making
you into and the knowledge of Jesus He is bringing to others through you.

Now if you happen to get a front row parking space at the mall you better declare the favor of God; especially if it is on a Saturday! haha. What I am getting at here is that being blessed and highly favored isn't totally reflective of what is happening in the material aspect of our lives...it is really what we are carrying on the INSIDE. We are the living, breathing ambassadors and carriers of the presence of God! We can rejoice like Mary because God has chosen us to carry the hope of the world; now we just need to get to work at delivering it.

Adjust That Crown

Jonna

 

 

  

You are NOT your failures

The solution to dealing with our past or present failures is living life on God’s terms. Lay everything down at His feet and move on and don't look back. If the all knowing and powerful God can forgive you....then who are you to NOT forgive yourself? Rise up and finally accept who you are in Christ....not perfect but forgiven....and start living like it! We are not our failures.

8 ^1-2 With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.

 

^3-4 God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn’t deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that.

The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for but we couldn’t deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.

^5-8 Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn’t pleased at being ignored.

^9-11 But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won’t know what we’re talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God’s terms. It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he’ll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!

^12-14 So don’t you see that we don’t owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There’s nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God’s Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!

^15-17 This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what’s coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we’re certainly going to go through the good times with him!

^18-21 That’s why I don’t think there’s any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what’s coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.

 

^22-25 All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.

^26-28 Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.

^29-30 God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.

^31-39 So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture,

 

None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.     Romans chapter 8; The message Version

 

 

Adjust That Crown, Put your Head up, And Move Right Along

Jonna


 

*Loving Your Neighbors

Hey I am just like anyone else. I want to like my neighbors and I am sure my neighbors want to like
me. In fact...doesn't the Bible say that we should LOVE our neighbors? Well I am not sure Jesus was aware of the subdivision that I live in and the many "spies" that report  small and trivial indiscretions with their yard etc.

Between the barking dogs and the fact that we only mow our grass every other week...well that good neighbor thing just sank. One day we found a photo of our yard on our neighborhood Facebook group. Yes that was a blessing! Someone wondered why our grass was so much higher than all the other people on our street. Well it took a team of wild horses and someone taking my phone away for me to NOT respond!

Are we a good neighbor? Probably not. Apparently we really need to get a muzzle for our dogs and we need to hire someone to come weekly to cut grass. Maybe then we can redeem ourselves! Have you ever felt like it was harder to be a Christian witness to people that live near you? Well you are not alone. It is difficult because little pressures and stressors that are trivial to real everyday problems get in the way. I think it is in how we deal with the criticism and the prodding. It can be very hard! There have been times that I could have reported someone or taken a picture of trash in their yard to be vindictive just like someone did to me....but then I have to remember that God called us to love people. (thank you holy spirit for reminding me!)

The Golden Rule can be found in Matthew 7:12. This famous quote by Jesus Christ actually begins in the verse 7, which says we can go to God for our needs and receive help from Him: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” The next few verses elaborate on this thought. Just as a caring human father gives good gifts to his children, so, too, God gives good things to those who ask Him (verses 9-11). Verse 12 then concludes the thought: “Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (emphasis added throughout). The word therefore connects the Golden Rule verse to the preceding assurances that we can ask God for help in our lives and receive it.

So the way that I look at this is that the way we treat others sets the standard of how we will be treated by God! So if I want God to give me mercy in my time of need then I need to GIVE mercy to others. Sometimes it does FEEL like the "bad" guys are getting away with everything under the sun and you just keep giving and giving. That is when we need to seek help from the Lord! Ask Him to change your attitude and see past the physical stuff and see the truly important and eternal spiritual aspect going on. Trust me...in time and with God's help you will start to be blind to other people's indiscretions...all you will see is a person that God loves and so in turn you will love. I am in process of this....but I haven't arrived yet! I still get an itch when someone parks on my lawn but God is helping me.

If you love God you have the overflow of love that will naturally pour out on others. Love does not seek itself but it looks out for the well being of others first. Being a loving and good neighbor might just mean that you stop your car and get out and pick up that trash in their yard or move their trashcan out of the road or baking cookies for your neighbor who you in fact know reported you to the HOA.

Going the extra mile and doing something for someone else is the best witness we can have. I can post scriptures all day long on my social media but if I am not taking care of the "trivial" things that are important to them; then maybe my neighbors will never see the important things that I really want them to see....that being....Christ that lives in me. :)

Adjust That Crown

Jonna