need a new plan in life?

-
   Do you need a new plan in life? Are things broken for you right now, and seem impossible to fix? If so you may be able to relate to a movie that my wife and I watched the other day. The other day my wife Lyndsey and I were having a date-night at home, and one of the things that we love to do together is watch “chick-flicks”. Now I know this is not very manly of me to admit, but it is a way that I can esteem my wife better than myself, and so I do this. And even though in the beginning of our relationship chick-flicks were not on the top of my movie watching lists, due to the fact that I was the kind of guy that liked Rambo, Die Hard, and any other testosterone pumping movies that were made, I have since been converted by my wife. Guys may want to tar and feather me for saying this, but I don’t care because I know that it blesses my wife! And a happy wife leads to a happy life! Amen?
    The movie we were watching on our Date Night was P.S. I Love You! Which is a movie about a young woman named Holly, who is played by Hilary Swank, who loses her husband to a brain tumor, which causes her to completely withdraw from her friends and family, and life itself. But before her husband Jerry dies he writes her 10 letters that he has different people deliver to her over the next several seasons of her life. These letters from Jerry are designed to help heal his widowed wife’s heart, and to also help her begin living life to the fullest. Each of the letters that Jerry writes to Holly ends with a “P.S. I Love You”. Each day Holly would wake up and hope that a new letter would arrive. When the letters would arrive, she would be so filled with excitement and anticipation, and then she would read the letter as fast as she could, holding onto every word that was in it. She would then carry out the orders of the letter no matter how difficult it was for her to do so. 
   There were a lot of great adventures that Jerry sent Holly on, and there ended up being a lot of blessings that came her way because she had the courage to take steps of faith, even when she was facing incredible emotional pain. Through the letters that Jerry sent to Holly, she ended up having her life restored, and she began living a great adventure, did courageous things, reconciled with family, gained new purpose in life, and over time even fell back in love with someone new.
   I see a lot of similarities in this movie to our relationship with God. God has given us His Word to take away the pain and sorrow that fills our hearts. Through our faith in Jesus, God also restores us into whole people, and gives us a new and greater purpose to live for. In essence, the moment we open up God's love letter to us, which is His Word, He us sends on a great adventure with Him that lasts the rest of our earthly life. Just as each of Jerry's letters to Holly ended with P.S. I love, and at the same time Revealed the plan that Jerry had for Holly, so too is every inch of scripture inspired by the fact that God’s message to us is “PS I love you!” and “I have a wonderful Plan for your life!” In fact­ the Bible tells us in Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. They are plans for good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”
   May today be the day you begin eagerly opening up God's love letter to you, so that you can experience His life-changing love for your life, and begin embarking upon the great adventure that He has for your life. This is how you can truly begin living for eternity today!

Popular posts from this blog

What is godless chatter?

-
Image
What is godless chatter? The term godless chatter is used by the apostle Paul when he exhorts Timothy to, “Avoid godless chatter, because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly. Their teaching will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have wandered away from the truth. They say that the resurrection has already taken place, and they destroy the faith of some” (2 Timothy 2:16-18, NIV). In context, this passage of Scripture is dealing with the godless chatter of false teachers who were sneaking into the church and trying to corrupt the truth of God’s Word (2 Timothy 2:14-3:9). Paul clearly warns Timothy about them when he points them out by saying, “Their teaching will spread like gangrene” (2:17). Paul likens the godless chatter of false teachers to gangrene, which was a deadly disease that spread rapidly and ate away at a persons flesh. This Greek idiom truly emphasizes the repulsiveness of the ministry of the false
Read more

Knowing Jesus and Making Jesus Known

-
Image
Knowing Jesus and Making Jesus Known The primary vision behind the Christian faith can be simplified down to the following statement; "to KNOW Jesus and to make Jesus KNOWN."  Knowing Jesus and Making Jesus Known, that’s really what our Christian faith is all about.  The verse that has inspired the first part of this this saying “ to KNOW JESUS and to make Him Known”, is found in Philippians 3:10, which illustrates the apostle Paul’s heart for wanting to know Jesus more and more through pressing on daily in his relationship with Him. Paul tells us in Philippians 3:10, “that I may KNOW Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.”  This was Paul’s greatest desire in life, to become more like Jesus... by being conformed into His image, and the only way that this could take place was if he continued growing in his relationship with Jesus. In fact, Paul would continue on in Philippians 3, by saying, “N
Read more

Sermon Outline: 1 John 3:18-24

-
Image
1 John 3:18-24 Conquering Condemnation Pastor Jason Stewart I.       Introduction:    A little boy visiting his grandparents was given his first slingshot. He practiced in the woods, but he could never hit his target. As he came back to Grandma's back yard, he noticed her pet duck, and like a sniper quietly approached the duck, not really believing he would hit the duck of course, as he hadn’t hit anything he was aiming at all day. However, as this young sniper approached this poor unsuspecting duck, he took aim and let his rock fly. Wouldn’t you know it, the rock ended up hitting the duck right on the head, and as the duck fell dead, the little sniper panicked. He then desperately began trying to hide the dead duck before Grandma found out, and so he buried it in a nearby woodpile, only to look up and see his sister watching. Sally had seen it all, but she said nothing. After lunch that day, Grandma said, "Sally, let's wash the dishes." But Sally said, "Johnny t
Read more