pictures and visions

My Mom is clearing out her house and getting ready to put it on the market. She gave me several boxes of photographic slides of family times from years ago. At some point we need to go through the slides and transfer some to dvd's for a more permanent and convenient record. I thought about the nostalgic benefit of pictures...pictures that bring back memories of family love and growing up. There really is a great purpose in connecting with the past like that. Then I thought of our need for a different kind of picture...we also need "visions" or pictures of what can be as we move forward. We need some kind of vision of Heaven and some kind of vision of what life can be like, at its best, while we are here. There is great benefit in the pictures of the past that stir thankful hearts and pictures of the future that inspire us to action. One builds a foundation and the other provides the plans to build on! Such pictures may have helped the Apostle Paul make statements like the following quote from Philippians:

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Philippians 3:¹⁴ I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.

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blessings,

Rob Smith

"scratch and dent"

My daughter and son-in-law are making preparations to sell their home as they prepare to build a much-needed larger one for their family of five children. Yesterday, Mike and I began moving bins and furniture to a storage facility nearby to open up their home for showing. As we were carting one particular piece of furniture, Mike remarked jokingly,"Everything we have is from the 'scratch and dent' department!" Immediately it occurred to me that the same is true of all people and of Jesus' Church. It isn't because we are free from "scratches, dings and dents" that He has come but for that very reason. He came because we are, by our nature, damaged goods. But, nonetheless, He came and comes now to all who acknowledge their innate damage and weakness and incompleteness. And once we have responded to His love by returning ours we are still imperfect beings, who continue to get nicked and dented. But His healing presence now resides within, in the person of His Spirit. And we learn that the true damage is the damage that separates us from intimacy with Him. He is especially adept at making those repairs!

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Romans 8:¹¹ The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you.

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blessings,

Rob Smith

becoming

Will you be coming to Jesus?

As He walks toward you now...

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He is coming now to find you...

His presence will you allow?

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Are you becoming like Him?

Believed in who He is...

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Following like those fishermen,

Who left their nets for His...

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Are you coming to the knowledge

that only He can give?

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That being in His presence

is all you need to live...

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What are you becoming?

As your days are passing by...

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Do you catch and shine with light?

Or do shadows find you hide...

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Look! He's coming once again!

Go touch His cloak...Go feel His hand...Go walk with Him...

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Come fly.

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love with hopes that you will be coming to the One who is coming for you...that you are becoming like the One who is true!

Rob Smith

another reason

So here is another reason to follow Jesus...to become His disciple.  He has been where we want to go.  When the pioneers in our country pushed into the West they needed scouts to take them through dangerous places that were unfamiliar to them.  The scouts had been there before and knew the lay of the land and the location of water and how to avoid hostile natives.  We are pioneers who are on the way to Heaven...our desired ultimate destination.  But we have never been there before.  We've just heard great things about it and are confident that Heaven is where we want to end our journey.  Well Jesus addressed this and provided His credentials to become our scout in John, chapter 3, during His conversation with Nicodemus.  When Nicodemus seemed reluctanct to accept Jesus' teaching about being born again spiritually Jesus provided this insight from verses 11 and 12: "I assure you, we tell you what we know and have seen, and yet you won't believe our testimony.  But if you don't believe me when I tell you about earthly things, how can you possibly believe if I tell you about heavenly things?  No one has ever gone to heaven and returned.  But the Son of Man has come down from heaven.

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blessings as we all look to the One has brought heaven's perspective to earth!

Rob Smith

the race

Last night I watched a number of races at my grandkids' swim meet.  I had to watch them because I was helping "time" the races.  There were dozens of races for kids from about age 4 through high school and the kids were really into it.  They were focused as they approached the starting blocks and riveted on plunging in and moving down their lanes as fast as they could.  The very youngest children were very dear as they struggled to complete the length of the pool and had to hang on to the lane dividers at times to rest.  I thought about the race that each of us is in each day.  It occurred that in our race, just as with the swimmers last night, there is more than one goal.  There is the race we have with ourselves, to improve our times.  And there is the race we have with others outside of ourselves.  We are motivated by both.  We really can't control how the others around us perform and we don't even know, necessarily who they will be.  But we can do something about how we perform.  Just as the individual swimmer uses practice to refine his or her stroke and build up endurance, so we can work on our attitudes and practices of faith.  As we approach the starting blocks today I wonder if we can remember to be as focused as the kids last night, who concentrated on their lanes, their technique and giving their all.  I am confident that the Lord is just that focused on each of our lives!

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blessings,

Rob Smith

Fw: Gray reflections

 

I am forwarding this picture of my local pond. As I walked there this morning, enjoying some quiet time with the Lord I noticed that the pond was reflecting a gray sky. It occurred to me that sometimes even our private times with the Lord seem like "gray reflections". We don't always have great bursts of brilliant light and 'break through' revelations. It is comforting to know that the Lord is with us even in the gray times, when life is quiet and close and our thoughts seem somewhat closed in by a low hanging sky. The important thing seems to be the reminder that, nevertheless He is also close and He is aware and He is ready to reflect peace back into our hearts as we walk with Him.

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1 Corinthians 13:12 Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.

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blessings,

Rob Smith

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Rob Smith <toanosmith@yahoo.com>
To: Rob Smith <toanosmith@yahoo.com>
Sent: Monday, July 21, 2014 7:12 AM
Subject: Gray reflections

Sometimes our times of reflection with the Lord are gray like the pond's reflection of this morning's sky.

Roaming in Romans

I can't seem to shake Romans 12 from my thinking. I think there is much in this chapter that discusses and explains the transformed kind of life that we are called to who have found the love of the living Lord. This morning I was struck by words of verse 9:

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Romans 12:9 Don't just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good.

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What struck me is that there is no inconsistency in going all out when it comes to loving other people and going all out when it comes to standing up for what is right. There are times when we must not tolerate actions and behaviors that are contrary to God's plan and word. We live in a time when the popular culture says we must tolerate many lifestyles that run counter to God's plan. But this isn't the right way and it isn't the way of love. Love starts as a chain anchored to God's truth and connected to the vessels of our hearts and minds. We only can love others, "really love" others, as Romans 12 tells us, when that love drives up and out of a life anchored to Truth. As the verse states at its end...What is right is what is good!

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love,

Rob Smith

a different way of living

Romans chapter 12 shows the way to a new and refreshing way to live. It starts by encouraging us to lay our lives before God and allow him to transform our minds...our way of thinking. This amounts to change from the inside out. It is as though our final development is spiritual completion to accompany our physical maturity. This transformed mind leads to transformed behavior, according to the chapter. We begin with an honest self appraisal that acknowledges both strengths and weaknesses. We realize that our strengths have been given us to help others and our weaknesses are opportunities for others to help us. There is joy in finding our unique strengths and gifts because then we can apply them in service and in giving there is the greatest of satisfactions and the finding of personal meaning and the fulfillment of God's personal design for each of us. The chapter is very clear that this is how we find love, meaning and purpose.

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blessings,

Rob Smith

Giving back

Romans, chapter 12, is a map for successful living. We learn right away, as we start the chapter, that there is one proper attitude to handle the gift of our personal lives. Here is the opening statement: (verse 1) "And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice-the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him." It struck me that our relationship, in practice, with God might be addressed this way: We ought to give back to God the life he first gave to us. This only makes sense. We had nothing to do with having life and we don't begin to understand how we came to be or what the nature of life is. When we come back to God and lay our lives before him, the author of our lives, we find the starting point for our personal direction. No wonder Paul says "This is truly the way to worship him"!

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food for spiritual thought...

Rob Smith

everything comes from him

Like many, or most, I like to keep up with world news. I usually do this by checking the internet occasionally during the day or watching the nightly news on TV. The world seems to be in a constant state of turmoil and most of that turmoil seems to be due to the harm that some people have in mind to do to others (the rest seems to be due to natural phenomena like hurricanes, typhoons and wildfires or mudslides). We don't see God named as a key figure in the daily news very often, unless His name is used improperly to rally people against one another or unless there is a challenge to religious freedom. As I have been listening to the book of Romans I was reminded this morning that God is the biggest player on the news scene every single day. From sun up to sun down and through the night this place He created is moving through His sovereign control...even when it appears to be staggering from the daily news coverage. He is working His purposes out...purposes that have been in His mind from the beginning. Here is a quote from the end of Romans 11 that underscored this to me:

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Romans 11:36 For everything comes from him and exists by his power and is intended for his glory. All glory to him forever! Amen.

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blessings as we bow before Him today!

Rob Smith

the road

We are all on the same road (and it can be as congested as an interstate in the summer)! It is the road of life and its mile markers are measured in days, weeks and years. Our personal trip is recorded by our age. The scenery that flashes by and the side trips we take by exiting the main road add unique flavor to our trip. But we all had the same natural beginning in birth and we will all have the same natural end in death. Along the way we may aspire to different modes of transportation and we may add varying qualities and amounts of "stuff" to our vehicle. But at the end of the trip we will park, get out and end the journey here. But it is good to consider what happens after the natural trip ends. It turns out that there is One who laid out the road trip we all have been on. In fact, He knew when each of us would arrive on the scene and He has had a lot to do with the nature of our road trip. And, perhaps it is not surprising that He has more in store after this natural journey ends here. Just as a road map, or GPS, is so helpful to find your way and gain perspective on where you are for the natural journeys, so coming to know the One who fashioned the road of life is vital to finding the road that leads to eternal life. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and life." He is our connection between the natural road that begins and ends here and our eternal life which begins here and goes on forever.

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blessings,

Rob Smith

Pre Owned Super Center

A few miles from my home there is a used car dealer. This dealer is associated with a new car dealership and when he built a new facility to sell new cars he turned the old premises into the used car division and named it "Pre-Owned Super Center". It occurred to me that there are parallels to our lives in this name. Everyone comes to this life as a new model...we have that new-baby smell and perfect skin and we grow to physical maturity from that original agency. But as we grow and develop some wear, some nicks, and a few scars our frame begins to take on individual character and shape. At a certain point, if we grasp the grace of the Lord and His plan for new life that goes way beyond the outer wrapper, we become ready for the "Pre-Owned Super Center". We may no longer have the new product smell and we are no longer physically perfect or blemish-free. But the mix of life's wear with the life-giving presence of the Holy Spirit makes us prime for display in the showroom and on the lot of the Pre-Owned Super Center. We have become "experienced" in the ways of life and are ready to transport others to that destination as well.

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Mark 2:22 "And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the wine would burst the wineskins, and the wine and the skins would both be lost. New wine calls for new wineskins."

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to all the new old models out there on God's "Pre-Owned Super Center".

Rob Smith

three key truths

Sin, Law and Spirit are three important truths addressed by Paul in the book of Romans. I was listening this morning to chapter 7 of the great book. I was reminded that there is a condition, something like a disease, that is the common reality of every single human being. The Bible calls this condition "sin". Sin has been mankind's inner companion ever since Adam and Eve chose a different direction than God offered. That inner rebellion somehow has passed down across all generations. God put a plan into motion to counteract sin. He raised up a family that became a nation and gave them rules to follow that were right and true, but the people consistently failed to keep these rules, which were called the Law. The reason they failed to keep the Law is because of the strong grip that Sin has on the inner person. Paul teaches us that we can know what is the right thing to do but still choose to do the wrong thing. So we need the power of the Spirit of God, a greater power than we have within ourselves alone. When Jesus died He broke the power of Sin because He did what we could not do. He lived a sin-free life and then died for us, who could not make ourselves right. When we realize that we have this Sin condition and when we realize that only Jesus death is sufficient to break sin's power the Bible says we have entered into a new dimension of living. Sin is still part of our nature as human beings but the Spirit of God now lives inside us as well and we can choose to allow that Spirit to rule us rather than Sin.

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Sin, Law and Spirit...what is your understanding? How have your responded to this point? How will you act going forward?

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Romans 7:⁴ So, my dear brothers and sisters, this is the point: You died to the power of the law when you died with Christ. And now you are united with the one who was raised from the dead. As a result, we can produce a harvest of good deeds for God. ⁵ When we were controlled by our old nature, sinful desires were at work within us, and the law aroused these evil desires that produced a harvest of sinful deeds, resulting in death. ⁶ But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit.

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blessings,

Rob Smith

What are you doing?

Ok, so we know that it isn't what we do that is most important...it is who we are and what/who we are trusting in. But what are we doing?...because doing is what we spend most of the day being involved with. Are we just swept along with weekly, monthly, daily routines? Are the things we do really self centered activities for the most part? Certainly the way we spend our time is some kind of reflection of our core motivations...our central purposes. We live in a land that is free here in America and we have a very wide choice...but do we really choose or do we prefer to have our choices made for us? Jesus said (quoted in Matthew 7:20) "Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions." I am challenged to consider how what I do will identify me as one of Jesus' people!

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blessings,

Rob Smith

Walls and gates

There are no walls to Jesus' church,

It's built of living stones.

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They breathe and move in living ways...

A temple that He owns.

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There is a gate to enter through,

This church that has no walls..

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The handle turns with faith expressed

in Jesus strength alone.

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And if your walls are crumbling down,

Your structure rocked with strife...

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Come to the One from Heaven's throne,

The gate that leads to life.