Saturday, February 2, 2019

GOD THOUGHTS FEBRUARY 2

God Thoughts February 2

Memorize: I always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers, because I hear about your love for all his holy people and your faith in the Lord Jesus. Philemon 4,5

Read 1 Corinthians 7:17-24


Verse 23 leaves me speechless every-time I read it; "You were bought at a price; do not 

become slaves of human beings."  Most often with no violence threatened or money we 

are enslaved by others.  Ironically, scripture says when we come to Christ, we are his 

slave and that makes us free!

Brene Brown puts it this way in her book; Gifts of Imperfections.  Fitting in is about 

assessing a situation and becoming who you need to be to be accepted. Belonging, on the 

other hand, doesn’t require us to change who we are; it requires us to be who we are. . .

It’s worth noting that I use the words innate and primal in the definition of belonging. I’m 

convinced that belonging is in our DNA, most likely connected to our most primitive 

survival instinct. Given how difficult it is to cultivate self-acceptance in our perfectionist 

society and how our need for belonging is hardwired, it’s no wonder that we spend our 

lives trying to fit in and gain approval. It’s so much easier to say, “I’ll be whoever or 

whatever you need me to be, as long as I feel like I’m part of this.” From gangs to 

gossiping, we’ll do what it takes to fit in if we believe it will meet our need for belonging. 

But it doesn’t. We can only belong when we offer our most authentic selves and when 

we’re embraced for who we are.

Brown, BrenĂ©. The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are (p. 25,27). Hazelden Publishing. Kindle Edition. 

Brene, does not go far enough for, only One can embrace us for who we are-our Maker!  If 

we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, 


we belong to the Lord. Romans 14:8  Be free, by enslaving yourselves to God's love!

Friday, February 1, 2019

God Thoughts February 1

Memorize: I always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers, because I hear about your love for all his holy people and your faith in the Lord Jesus. Philemon 4,5

Read Philemon 


AT THE foreman’s signal, the giant ball is released, and with dynamite force and a reverberating crash, it meets the wall, snapping bricks like twigs and scattering pieces of mortar. Repeatedly, the powerful pendulum works, and soon the barrier has been reduced to rubble. Then it is carted away so that construction can begin.     Life has many walls and fences that divide, separate, and compartmentalize. Not made of wood or stone, they are personal obstructions, blocking people from each other and from God. But Christ came as the great wall remover, tearing down the sin partition that separates us from God and blasting the barriers that keep us from each other. His death and resurrection opened the way to eternal life to bring all who believe into the family of God (see Ephesians 2:14-18).       Roman, Greek, and Jewish cultures were littered with barriers, as society assigned people to classes and expected them to stay in their place—men and women, slave and free, rich and poor, Jews and Gentiles, Greeks and barbarians, pious and pagan. But with the message of Christ, the walls came down, and Paul could declare, “Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all” (Colossians 3:11).     This life-changing truth forms the backdrop for the letter to Philemon. One of three personal letters in the Bible, the letter to Philemon is Paul’s personal plea for a slave. Onesimus “belonged” to Philemon, a member of the Colossian church and Paul’s friend. But Onesimus, the slave, had stolen from his master and had run away. He had run to Rome, where he had met Paul, and there he had responded to the Good News and had come to faith in Christ (1:10). So Paul wrote to Philemon and reintroduced Onesimus to him, explaining that he was sending him back, not just as a slave but as a brother (1:11-12, 16). Tactfully he asked Philemon to accept and forgive his brother (1:10, 14-15, 20). The barriers of the past and the new ones erected by Onesimus’s desertion and theft should divide them no longer—they are one in Christ.


Tyndale. Life Application Study Bible NIV (Kindle Locations 105709-105712). Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.. Kindle Edition. 

Thursday, January 31, 2019

January 31

God Thought January 31st

Now we can face shame from a stronger place, a place where sin cannot pull us under by lies 

about our unworthiness. Jesus stands up for us, he stands for us, and he stands in our place. 

We are worthy of love and belonging not because we have made ourselves worthy but because 

God has loved us into his kingdom. With this unshakeable worth, the church has hope of being 

a community of truly, deeply wholehearted people. If sin cannot keep us from God’s love, 

shame certainly cannot either. It’s the argument of the greater to the lesser. Because God has 

taken away our deep, more indelible sin that kept us from him, then shame has no true basis to 

steal away our worth in God. For we who are in Christ, we always have the ultimate last word 

against shame. I am covered by Jesus Christ’s righteousness. Death has lost its sting, the law 

has lost its power, and shame no longer has a valid claim on my identity. I am worthy. Say it out 

loud. There is nothing you could do to earn God’s love or to stop its flow from eternity past to 

eternity future. You stand firmly in the middle of this love tide that washes away shame. 

Shame’s lies threaten to attack you at the foundation of your identity, but it is in that very place 

where you have the security of a forever love. You are worthy, and you are in a community of 

fellow worthy beings. The church is a place where we find joy in our rescue and hope in the 

love poured out in our hearts through the Spirit. Therefore it is also a place where shame 

cannot thrive. For nothing is more powerful than a community’s recognition of a person’s 

worthiness. The church can drive shame away as often as it tries to slither into the cracks of 

our weakness and brokenness. For shame does not understand that these very places are the 

glue that binds us together, the source of our communal strength. Our weakness and 

brokenness serve to remind us of our common rescue and the abundant grace poured out into 

these very cracks so that shame is expelled. We are all simultaneously laid low and raised high 

at the foot of the cross; we are humbled by our sin and exalted by God’s gracious love on our 

behalf. So shame cannot tell us anything about our inherent unworthiness that we have not 

already faced and been rescued from. It can do nothing to take away the love that guards and 

keeps us until the day of Christ Jesus when shame will disappear forever.

Nelson, Heather Davis. Unashamed (pp. 164-165). Crossway. Kindle Edition. 

Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? 36 (As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”[o]) 37 No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us. Romans 8:35-37 NLT


Tomorrow we begin by reading Philemon.

Wednesday, January 30, 2019

God Thoughts January 30

God Thoughts January 30

Friday we begin discovering the book of Philemon, by reading all twenty-five verses.  I have made
available daily doses of God's word, so we can all be reading, discussing and practicing the same 

thing.  The book of Philemon is a snapshot of the early Jesus community, and how to become that 

type of family.

As part of the community we belong to through Jesus Christ, we are called to invite others into this
community and to foster the sense of belonging that we are given by God through Jesus Christ. Ray
Ortlund, a senior pastor with decades of ministry experience, describes this type of community when 

he writes about the church: The family of God is where people behave in a new way. I think of it with
a simple equation: gospel + safety + time. The family of God is where people should find lots of
gospel, lots of safety, and lots of time. In other words, the people in our churches need multiple
exposures to the happy news of the gospel from one end of the Bible to the other; the safety of non-
accusing sympathy so that they can admit their problems honestly; and enough time to rethink their
lives at a deep level, because people are complex and changing is not easy. In a gentle church like
this, no one is put under pressure or singled out for embarrassment. Everyone is free to open up, and
we all grow together as we look to Jesus. (Ray Ortlund, The Gospel: How the Church Portrays the Beauty of Christ (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2014), 72.





Tuesday, January 29, 2019

God Thoughts January 29th

God Thoughts January 29th

D. A. Carson says that we do not lie awake at night recounting 

the ways we think we have brought shame to God through our 

actions; what keeps us anxious and sleepless are the ways that 

we feel shame before others. The I can’t believe I said that to her! 

sort of thinking is what we mull over. Or the Maybe I failed that 

exam, or received that academic rejection, but once I try this . . . 

then I will have arrived. Carson exposes that we have missed

the cause for deeper shame, a shame of being exposed before God 

and the shame of our attempts to cover up our shame. Perhaps 

we obsess over these smaller shame moments because we cannot 

face our real shame problem: that we live ashamed to walk and 

talk openly with our Creator.3 We are Adam and Eve, hiding 

when God pursues us and seeking to cover up with the closest 

thing near us, which in our Western culture is often our 

achievements and performance. We feel exposed before God, but 

it is easier to say, “I feel naked [exposed] in front of him, and so I 

will hide from him and blame him for my shame.” We play the 

ultimate shame- and blame-shifting game begun by Adam in the 

garden of Eden. “It was Eve—‘she gave me the fruit of the tree, 

and I ate’” (Gen. 3:12). And then when God turns to Eve, she 

blames the Serpent who “deceived me, and I ate” (v. 13). At this 

point, God does not blast Eve or Adam for their blame-shifting. 

First and foremost, he curses the Serpent, who is Satan in 

disguise. Eve told the truth about the Devil’s deception, and God 

responds by cursing evil. But he does not stop there. God can see 

through their self-deception, and he confronts both Eve and 

Adam, calling them to account for their own choices to be 

deceived and led astray. As descendants of Adam and Eve, we 

experience grave consequences every day of our lives: futility in 

work, and frustration in marriage and child-bearing and 

relationship. Not only does God confront Adam and Eve, but God 

provides for their real shame. He promises Jesus Christ. And 

when we look forward in redemptive history, we find the hope to 

cover our deepest shame of our insufficient performance being 

exposed before God. Isaiah rightly says that even our best 

attempts, our righteous acts, or even our ministry pursuits are 

like “a polluted garment” before God (Isa. 64:6) if they’re done to 

try to earn God’s approval and good standing before him. The 

things we do to try to cover up our shame bring us more shame 

than before. We feel like our work isn’t up to par, so we spend 

increasing amounts of time at the office and less time at home. 

As a result, our family relationships disintegrate while work 

continues to move the bar higher and higher up and out of reach. 

We now add the shame of failing at family to the shame of work 

performance. Or we feel exposed that we have not been good 

enough to outweigh our sins before God. We increase our 

involvement at church or in our community, showing up at every 

service project, and begin to look down on all of those who seem 

less committed than we are. Now we have added self-

righteousness to our sins, with the additional danger of feeling 

better about ourselves because of our religious performance 

while we are further away from true devotion to God. We 

desperately need to be rescued. Rescue comes only through 

Jesus. Jesus took the shame of our shame-filled (and shame-

fueled) performances and misplaced blame, and bore it in his 

body and shed blood for us on the cross. He covered not only the 

guilt of our sin, but also the shame of trying to cover up our sin. 

And the good news does not stop there! We have Jesus’s 

righteous performance in place of our feeble half-hearted 

attempts.

“For our sake he [God] made him [Jesus] to be sin who knew no 

sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of 

God” (2 Cor. 5:21).

Nelson, Heather Davis. Unashamed (p. 93). Crossway. Kindle Edition. 


Monday, January 28, 2019

God Thoughts January 28th

God Thoughts January 28th
The problem then is how will you have courage to be the trailblazer, to pioneer your way forward past the relational barriers shame creates between us, barriers of fear and insecurity and people-pleasing? There is only one I know who can make us brave enough for such a task—who can give us the honor and secure belonging we desire. He is the one who made the way for us to return to God—who repaired the sin-broken trail of relationship to God through his life, death, and resurrection on our behalf. Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John14:6), and then did the impossible so that we could live courageously in relationship with God and lead the way in restoring relationships with others. Jesus was excluded by all and abandoned by his friends in a time of need so that we could always be welcomed into relationship. At his greatest hour of pain and separation, even God himself turned his back on him. God’s “Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” became the one who alone cried out, “My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 3:17; 17:5; 27:46). God rejected Jesus in a moment of agony on the cross in order that we would be eternally embraced through faith in this sacrificed Savior. Jesus’s closest friends on earth, his disciples, abandoned him when they fell asleep during his hour of greatest need, and then fearfully fled as soon as he was arrested. Trailblazing the way to salvation was a lonely path, filled with social shame as Jesus was repeatedly rejected and abandoned. What motivated him? It was love and joy. Hebrews talks about “the joy that was set before him,” which helped him to “endure the cross, despising the shame,” and which led him to the victorious, secure place where he “is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:2). This throne is described no longer as a throne of judgment, but a throne of grace—where we may receive help in our time of need (Heb.4:16). And, oh, how we need help! How needy we are! We need grace to first admit how much we need it. Ephesians 2:8 says that even this is a gift of God—faith to believe in grace. And we need courage to believe we have the grace for which we ask. When you cry out to this Savior—this made-vulnerable-to-you one—he is quick to answer. There is no waiting for a response, as we must do with every other person. Even the most attentive friend, spouse, roommate, or parent is not available 24/7. God gives us the Holy Spirit through Jesus who is interceding for us even when we sleep (Rom. 8:26–27; Heb. 7:25). Jesus is ready and waiting for you to call on him. This perfect love begins to drive out your fear of shame. That’s what social shame is at its core. It is fear of being shamed, of experiencing relational rejection or exclusion.

Nelson, Heather Davis. Unashamed (p. 80). Crossway. Kindle Edition. 




Sunday, January 27, 2019

God Thoughts January 27

Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame. 

Genesis 2:25.  That is where man started and where we are 

headed.

I am a theological oddball, I do not believe the Bible teaches the 

doctrine of Original Sin.  One of the proofs in my mind is an utter 

lack of shame in newborns and young children.  My newest 

grandchild Teagan, squeaks when he is hungry or dirty, with no 

shame whatsoever.  My Isaac who is three practices Genesis 2;25 

on a regular basis and can't seem to figure out what all the fuss is 

about.  Sarah who is now in school is an interesting case study.  

She is already picking up what is liked and what is not.  

Yesterday, we walked with her to a neighborhood park,  which 

had an outdoor theater.  She made Mimi and Papa sit down on 

cold aluminum bleacher, as she performed her made up song 

stupid cupid, with no hesitation or thought as to what others 

may think.  Then she insisted Mimi and Papa, do the same, now 

there were hesitation and awkwardness.  It is adults who have 

sinned and grown old and shameful.

The next time you see a child dancing without shame, remember 

that this is where you began and where you are headed, through 

the hope of Jesus who was physically resurrected and in whose 

beauty we are even now clothed.


Nelson, Heather Davis. Unashamed (p. 67). Crossway. Kindle Edition.