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Excuse me, are you Jesus?
Posted on September 25, 2008, by lisa hudson, under church.
I very rarely read emails that get forwarded to me, but this one caught my eye for 2 reasons. One, it was from my Dad, and he doesn’t email me very often. Two, I found the title interesting. As I read it I couldn’t believe how pertinent it was to the current series we are going through, Be The Church. So I had to share…
A few years ago a group of salesmen went to a regional sales convention in Chicago. They had assured their wives that they would be home in plenty of time for Friday night’s dinner. In their rush, with tickets and briefcases, one of these salesmen inadvertently kicked over a table which held a display Of apples. Apples flew everywhere. Without stopping or looking back, they all managed to reach the plane in time for their nearly missed boarding.
ALL BUT ONE!!! He paused, took a deep breath, got in touch with his feelings, and experienced a twinge of compassion for the girl whose apple stand had been overturned.
He told his buddies to go on without him, waved good-bye, told one of them to call his wife when they arrived at their home destination and explain his taking a later flight. Then he returned to the terminal where the apples were all over the terminal floor.
He was glad he did.
The 16-year-old girl was totally blind! She was softly crying, tears running down her cheeks in frustration, and at the same time helplessly groping for her spilled produce as the crowd swirled about her, no one stopping and no one to care for her plight.>
The salesman knelt on the floor with her, gathered up the apples, put them back on the table and helped organize her display. As he did this, he noticed that many of them had become battered and bruised; these he set aside in another basket.
When he had finished, he pulled out his wallet and said to the girl, ‘Here, please take this $40 for the damage we did. Are you okay?’ She nodded through her tears.. He continued on with, ‘I hope we didn’t spoil your day too badly.’ As the salesman started to walk away, the bewildered blind girl called out to him, ‘Mister….’ He paused and turned to look back into those blind eyes She continued, ‘Are you Jesus?’ He stopped in mid-stride, and he wondered. Then slowly he made his way to catch the later flight with that question burning and bouncing about in his soul: ‘Are you Jesus?’ Do people mistake you for Jesus? That’s our destiny, is it not? To be so much like Jesus that people cannot tell the difference. As we live and interact with a world that is blind to His love, Life and grace.
If we claim to know Him, we should live, walk and act as He would. Knowing Him is more than simply quoting Scripture and going to church. It’s actually living the Word as life unfolds day to day.
You are the apple of His eye even though we, too, have been bruised by a fall. He stopped what He was doing and picked you and me up on a hill called Calvary and paid in full for our damaged fruit.
If we LIVE His word, then we ARE the Church!
Lisa
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God woke me up!
Posted on August 13, 2008, by lisa hudson, under church.
Have you ever been woken up by God? Last Thursday night, God woke me up - he came in the body of my son Jakob. Now you may think that I’m sounding a little crazy, but it’s true. I didn’t know it at the time. But I figured it out a couple of hours later.
Jake walked into our room at 3 in the morning. He said he had a nightmare, but when I lifted him up to crawl in bed with me, I realized what woke him up. He wet his bed. It’s ok - he’s 5 and sometimes they have accidents. Anyways, after he was taken care of I laid in bed and my mind start running. After about 45 minutes of not going back to sleep, I finally said to myself - ok God, you have something you want to say to me, I’m going to get up and listen.
I sneaked downstairs to find my husbands bible (it has a better concordance than mine) and had to use the light on my cell phone to find it. Chuck was up late and fell asleep on the couch - I didn’t want to wake him up. I crept back upstairs and went to our guest room (Jake was sleeping in our bed) and I crawled in bed and started reading.
I know you must be wondering, what did I start reading about? I started looking up scripture in the bible that spoke about Fellowship. Why Fellowship, you ask? Well I’ve been trying to dig deep and truly find out what I love to do, what my spiritual gifts are, what are my God given abilities, what sets my heart on fire? Basically, I’m trying to rediscover my S.H.A.P.E! (Spiritual Gifts, Heart, Abilities, Personality, Experiences) I went through the the SHAPE profile and I’m going to share with you I wrote on my profile. I feel like my Spiritual gift is Hospitality - The ability to make others, especially strangers, feel warmly welcomed, accepted, and comfortable in the church family. The ability to coordinate and promote fellowship. I Love to Organize. My specialized abilities are Planning, Promoting, Welcoming. If I put those gifts and abilities together and use them for God’s glory, I discovered something that I knew in my heart all along, and I believe others would say the same thing about me, I have a heart for Fellowship. Over the last couple months I’ve been asked a few times what I feel passionate about? I think I’ve finally figured it out. I have a passion for gathering people together. Christian fellowship occurs when two or more Christians are in one another’s company. That’s what I love to do. I’m always wanting to get together with my Christian friends. I’m wanting to connect my friends with other friends. I want new families coming to our church, to meet other families at our church. I want the girls to get together and hang out. I want my husband to spend time with other Christian men. I want families to hang out with other families. In essence, I enjoy and encourage fellowship. A gift that comes naturally to me.
The best part of finding what I’m passionate about is knowing that my family feels the same way. Chuck loves to get people together. Every time we gather with friends and he prays over our meal he “thanks God for this time of fellowship, for breaking bread together”. In Acts 2:42 believers “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” That is what God wants us to do. Last night Jakob prayed and said, “Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for the fellowship tonight…” It was the sweetest thing! My kids are always asking us to get together with friends, so they can play with their friends! My husband and my children have a heart for fellowship too!
Since getting families together is what I love to do, I organized an outing to the Storm Game for our Life Church families. We had about 12 families, 50 people gather in fellowship at the ball park. It just so happened to be Star Wars night which the kids loved - it was probably the highlight for them! So I thought I’d share some great pictures of Life Church fellowshipping at the Storm Game!
I want you to know that by the time I finished reading (it was 5:30am) I literally felt like my heart was on fire. It was pounding in my chest and I was smiling (to myself). If Life Church is your home and you are ready to find your SHAPE, I want to encourage you to take the time to fill out a SHAPE profile and meet with a Pastor. You can now do this online, click on the link in the upper left hand corner of the blog S.H.A.P.E. !!! I’m so excited!! The next time you get woken up in the middle of the night, it might be God wanting to have a talk with you. I promise if you listen he might have something life changing for you to hear! I think he might have just changed mine!
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Luck? Nope Loved!
Posted on July 9, 2008, by lisa hudson, under church, women.
Ok, I’m feeling the pressure; I have to follow Steve’s wisdom filled (albeit grammatically lacking) blog yesterday. How did I get so lucky?
I just wrote the word lucky and it stopped me in my tracks. I had to do a little research on what other Christians thought of the word luck. Does LUCK exist for Christians? I went online and found some interesting comments on a blog I came across http://christianblogs.christianet.com. I thought I would share a few of the comments that stood out to me.
The 1st one I came across was this one. “There is no such thing to GOD as luck. Everything is predestinated. “ Now I’m thinking to myself… was I predestined to write a blog directly following Steve. Hmmm….
The next one I came across was, “Luck is of the devil. Faith is of God.” So now I’m thinking, is the devil getting in my head making me think I can’t write an awesome blog like Steve.
Then I came across this one, which I really liked, “Luck is a human concept. It is not spiritual nor has any Biblical roots. Ecc. 3 says, there is a time for everything under the sun. Every event has a time and purpose. Luck is saying fate decided to bless you out of the blue. God does not work out of the blue. He works according to His will not yours…” So now I’m starting to understand. God WANTED me to write a blog after Steve. It was part of His plan.
For those of you who know me, I did a bible study last summer called “A Woman of Contentment” a study of Ecclesiastes. That study truly changed my life. I grabbed my book and flipped it open and turned to the day where we talked about how an Eternal Perspective Changes Everything. I believe that God is good, and God is in control. I need to stay within the orbit of His love (as Solomon did not) even when wisdom does not provide the answers. I truly don’t believe in luck, I believe that I am blessed. When things go bad, I know it’s NOT bad luck, it’s part of God’s plan, to teach me and perfect me in little and in big ways.
So as I read Ecclesiastes 3:1, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.” I understand that the time was now for me to write this blog. The pressure is off, because I know that God really doesn’t care if I write a good blog or not. He wanted to teach me something, to make me grow, or remind me of something I had forgotten. I now know he wanted me to remember how I felt when I was going through that study because I’m going through a trial in my life right now. The contentment has come back, I will resolve to live by Faith that he has a plan for my family and that plan is to prosper us and not to harm us. He loves us so much. I hope that if you are going through a trial in your life you can find comfort in knowing that you ARE being blessed through your trial. There is a time and a season for everything, and He has a plan for you. So instead of feeling lucky, feel LOVED!
~ Lisa Hudson
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Fear… Do you know how to conquer it?
Posted on July 3, 2008, by lisa hudson, under women.
Fear… Have any of these worries ever entered your thoughts? Have you thought any of these questions? Does this sound like you?
I worry about being alone. I worry about how we’re going to pay our bills? Will my husband find a job that leaves him fulfilled? Am I doing a good job raising my children? Will they grow up to love God? Will my teenager come home tonight? Will I ever find someone to love me? If any of these questions are troubling you, than it sounds like you might be having a tough time conquering fear.
Our heavenly Father has given us a a verse that can help you to have His peace through every trial: “Be anxious about nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God that passes all understanding will keep your heart and mind in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7).
Take your worries, take your problems to the Lord, pray hard, thank Him for all the help he has given you in the past - and you will find the peace you are looking for!
Psalm 34:4 is another wonderful verse to memorize. “I sought the Lord and He heard me, and He delivered me from all my fears.” Whenever a fear strikes you, say that verse to yourself, close your mind to fear and it will go away. Often we may become fearful just by dwelling on something that troubles us instead of turning it over to God. Having a close relationship with the Lord is what help will help you most. Cast your fears upon him today! Don’t wait! Just give them to him!
-Lisa Hudson
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