the lamb as shepherd

 

When the lamb becomes the shepherd,

You find the place of peace..

-

The shepherd's job is very clear...

to lead all of His sheep.

-

It took a lamb to walk with men,

To eat...to cry...to walk this place...

-

The lamb was perfect sacrifice,

Come from Heaven to make us right.

-

When the lamb becomes your shepherd,

You'll find your place of peace.

-

We follow One who shared our flock,

Then purchased our release.

-

-

Revelation 14:4

They have kept themselves as pure as virgins, following the Lamb wherever he goes.  They have been purchased from among the people on the earth as a special offering to God and to the Lamb.

-

blessings,

Rob Smith

Fw: content to be created

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Rob Smith <toanosmith@yahoo.com>
To: Rob Smith <rsmith@mycwa.com>
Sent: Thursday, July 30, 2015 7:26 AM
Subject: content to be created

We just came back from a week in New England to visit family and see a friend's son get married.  New England is a beautiful place, full of history and natural beauty.  We saw villages that are still active with dates going back to the 1600's and the countryside was rolling and rocky and marked by lakes and hills going back to the glaciers.  I went for a morning walk at my Aunt and Uncle's house in Connecticut (picture attached) and was struck with the simple beauty of the river near their home.  I was reminded that I, too, am a part of this Creation picture.  We have a very special place in the order and plans of our Maker and He has gone to great length to restore us...made in His image...to a place where we can know Him forever.  But my starting point is as a created being.  I am reminded this morning that it is important to keep perspective on just who is the Creator and who is created.  He did such a fine work of fashioning us that we sometimes get things out of order.  We may foolishly think that we are the ones in charge!  It is good to be content to be created and share in the beauty of all of creation and especially the unique wonder of personally knowing and bowing before our Creator!

-

Isaiah 45:12

I have made the earth, and created man upon it: I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens; and all their host have I commanded.

-

blessings,

Rob Smith

assurance of forever

  Confidence makes all the difference.  When it comes to sports...to our work...our family...our relationships with friends...

Confidence makes the difference between expectation and reality.  How do we gain confidence that we have secured living forever.  And how important is that confidence...that assurance...to living effectively and purposefully here and now?

-

When we have personally said "Yes" to Jesus' sacrifice and personally endorsed what he did on the cross...it is very much like endorsing a check that has been made out to you.  As an analogy, you cannot convert a check that has been made out to you until you sign your name to it.  When Jesus died on the cross He was sending you a check worth eternal life for you and made out to your name.  However, you must sign your name...personally endorse this transaction to convert to reality.

-

And  then you will live the rest of your life here and transition there to the heavenly dimension...forever changed.  But you can expect to stumble at times...you can expect to have doubts...you can question whether anything has actually changed.

-

You need the confidence of "assurance" of your salvation...like finding the records of the cancelled check to prove that the transaction took place.  When it comes to this assurance...this confidence...we do better to rest on God's promise than our feelings.

-

Here are a few of my favorite assurance verses:

1 John 5:12-14

Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.  I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.  And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.

-

It is critical to, more than "think" we have eternal life...We need to "know" we do!

-

blessings,

Rob Smith

now and forever

  Forever is the word and the concept that I can't stop thinking about.  But, I realized that we make a distinction between living here and living somewhere else forever.  I've come to realize that forever finds its starting point now...here...and continues in the eternal dimension.  We are created beings who also need a redeemer to make it possible to move from now to forever.

-

The book of Colossians puts it this way in the first chapter (verses 12-14):

'giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.  He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.'

-

The past tense of the action affirms that when we have placed our trust...our faith...in the work of Jesus on the Cross we have moved from here to eternity.  Jesus put it this way, as recorded in John's gospel in the 5th chapter, 24th verse: 'Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life.  He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.'

-

In a sense the past is passed when we have come at last to an honest recognition of just who Jesus is and what He has done for us.  Forever starts with Him at that moment and the transition to Heaven becomes the ultimate change of location..but not a change of status.

-

Forever starts now!

-

blessings,

Rob Smith

Forever thinking

  The first definition in dictionary.com for "forever" is: "without ever ending; eternally: to last forever."  Forever is really two words: for and ever.  The definition for "ever" is "at all times; always".  From our earliest days in childhood we have measured life by change and time.  Each birthday marked by another candle on the cake and another grade level in school.  Physical growth marked in doorways for posterity...hallmark ages reached for driving for drinking for voting.  And then the progression of love, marriage, family and senior life with grandchildren and retirement.  We have this inescapable relationship with time.  But something within tells us we were fashioned for more...that life has qualities that transcend time.  This life, marked by the passage of time, is a gateway to a place where time no longer rules.  The Bible tells us that there is a King who rules across time in a forever way.  Exodus 15:18 tells us "The Lord will reign forever and ever."  So He will reign without ending and He will reign continually. Psalm 48:14 connects this sovereign with us personally: "that this is God, our God forever and ever.  He will guide us forever."  The promise of living beyond this time-locked place on earth's surface is held to us.  Daniel puts it this way in chapter 7, verse 18: "But the saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever, forever and ever."

-

We were made for the place beyond time...where forever and ever come together.

-

blessings,

Rob Smith

Living forever

  So that was God's plan from the beginning...that man would live forever.  If Adam and Eve hadn't sinned in the Garden of Eden they would have lived forever in that garden.  They would have tended the garden and known the Lord in a direct and personal way.  But consider this: Adam and Eve were created beings that were placed on a created world under a created sun.  All of these creations have a material quality that tends toward ultimate destruction.  Barring replacement (possible to God, of course) the sun would eventually cool and the material world would lose its source of light and life.  It appears that Satan has won when he successfully deceives the original couple to disobey God.  But God is always one step ahead of Satan, like a chess master, thinking ahead of his opponent.  And God knows that the ultimate eternal life is spiritual in nature...to be directly in His presence in spiritual form...without even the veil of a created or material environment.  So man's failure to originally obey God leads to an ultimate plan to provide mankind with spiritual life that cannot be destroyed.  This plan unfolds first through an individual (Abraham) and then through a family (Jacob) then through a nation (Israel) and ultimately made available to all people, everywhere (including you and me).  God has turned the defeat Adam and Eve experienced around for an ultimate victory to complete God's original plan that man could live forever in a form and in a place that is beyond destruction and beyond corruption.

-

But, perhaps most interestingly of all, He doesn't force anyone to go there.  For some...for many...this life is all they opt for.  To live out their days under the sun and across the seasons and the stages of human life.  But this is a short life and not the life God originally planned for man.  The apparent defeat that Satan achieved in the Garden of Eden was reversed for all men when God's Son defeated Satan through a life of perfect obedience and total sacrifice that was victoriously crowned with a death that was transcended by resurrection to life.  Jesus is both the perfecter of our faith and the pioneer of our path to that eternal life.

-

But the key that turns the lock leading to life forever lies with you!  You must believe and then you, too,  will live forever!

-

John 6:47

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. [Jesus speaking]

-

blessings that you might believe,

Rob Smith

harmony

 

The definition of harmony includes this phrase: a consistent, orderly, or pleasing arrangement of parts;  I was thinking yesterday how our greatest peace comes when we are in alignment with God.  When we are in alignment with God in our relationship, in the attitude of our minds and the purpose of our steps...we have the greatest peace possible.  And  it made sense to me.  If there is very little distance or gap between my ways and my intentions and His purposes and plans, then there is little cause for stress.  The stress of life comes from the gaps that come into the picture.

-

Harmony is a beautiful musical reality where two sounds...two vibrations that are interpreted as sound...overlay each other and find agreement despite there separateness.

-

Harmony is a good metaphor for the kind of walk we should have with the Lord and the kind of walk that will bring peace...as our thoughts are filled with His and our conversation is with Him and our steps are with His.

-

Colossians 3:14 -15a

And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.  And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts...

-

blessings,

Rob Smith

Fw: shipwreck!

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Rob Smith <toanosmith@yahoo.com>
To: Rob Smith <rsmith@mycwa.com>
Sent: Tuesday, July 7, 2015 7:27 AM
Subject: shipwreck!

It's the perfect natural beauty of the local pond that I love so much...unspoiled by man.  Well that's been rudely disrupted by someone who sank their boat in a shallow area, leaving a windshield visible.  I mean...they didn't just have a problem and lose their boat in the pond...they left it there...out in the middle and it spoils the view!  We have a way of taking the perfection of our Creator's hand and finding ways of messing it up.  We come from a long line who have been doing this sort of thing since Adam and Eve tried going their own way back in the Garden.  I suppose we must acknowledge that shipwrecks and sunken boats will happen in our lives and it can appear that God is absent...but all of the shipwrecks and sunken boats are located in the midst of His handiwork...the nature that He fashioned and holds together.  So all of our issues play out on His stage, in His immediate presence.  It stands to reason that He might be the best one to approach for help to remove the sunken boats and retrieve the wreckage.  I can appreciate that He'd like to restore that perfect view that He had in mind to start with! 

-

1 Timothy 1:15,19

15 The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost....19 holding faith and a good conscience.  By rejecting this, some have made a shipwreck of their faith.

two body shops

  I love riding through the country and past small towns in rural areas.  Yesterday, Shirley and I enjoyed a brief excursion through Gloucester and Mathews and saw some beautiful country and great views of the Chesapeake Bay too.  One scene caught my attention as a study in contrasts.  Somewhere along the way an auto body shop was located next door to a funeral home.  Immediately I was struck with the interesting contrast and comparison.  Really we were looking at two kinds of body shop...one for cars and one for people.  The cars are not nearly as important as the people but the results coming from the auto body shop generally are damaged cars that are restored and returned to their drivers.  The result coming from the body shop for people is not as favorable.  These bodies of ours are just amazing.  They handle untold numbers of bumps, bruises and even breakages during a lifetime and we have medical people and hospitals to patch us up and help us get back on the road.  But there comes a time when the old chassis just gives out and the body needs to be prepared to return to the earth, while the spirit moves on.

-

Two kinds of body shop side by side.  Sometimes we need the dents hammered out and a new coat of finish applied and sometimes the body has run its course.  But all will be well as we trust in the ultimate owner of all the body shops!

-

blessings,

Rob Smith

Fw: dead tree in the garden

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Rob Smith <toanosmith@yahoo.com>
To: Rob Smith <rsmith@mycwa.com>
Sent: Thursday, July 2, 2015 7:33 AM
Subject: dead tree in the garden

Sometimes you just have to be honest and admit it...there's a dead tree in the garden.  This morning, on my walk, my eyes were drawn to a dead tree in the pretty marsh I've been visiting.  Whether from a lightning strike, insect infestation or disease...or possibly just age, a tree that once stood tall in the middle of the scene died and now it distracts from all that is living around it.

-

I thought about our lives and, for the most part, they are full of abundance and God's blessing and we are aware of that...but in the middle of this garden there may be a "dead tree".  There may be some area of my life that has been struck by unexplained calamity, infested with some bug of jealousy or hatred or infected with a disease of selfishness.  When that happens this one dead tree can dominate the view of my garden.

-

It may be time to call on the one who has fashioned the entire garden...who is supreme over matters of life and death and even our inner attitudes.  He is the true Master Gardener and, if I own up to the dead tree's presence....He's promised to remove it!

-

Proverbs 28:13

Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them  will obtain mercy.

-

blessings,

Rob Smith