Restoration at its finest

For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so that no one can boast. For we are his workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand so we may do them. (Ephesians 2:8-10 NET)

  Growing up I had a neighbor who him and his dad would restore older vehicles. And believe me, boy was it ever a process and a lot of hard work! Some of the vehicles they worked on didn't need much but for some it took years and years of work!! Rust all over the place to where paint wasn't visible, motor parts sometimes barely even recognizable due to the years of just sitting collecting rust. I can recount the hard hours he told me about when he would be sanding down metal to get it so that it would be ready for painting. Sparks arcing in every direction and water being thrown on the blade. I remember watching and helping occasionally place different parts together watching this bucket of rust become a beautiful master-pieces. They would shine and sparkle as though they had literally just rolled off the production line. Original lights to interior paneling just like it had been. And ya know.....we humans are a lot like those cars.

   In our world today, we like to think that we are all doing pretty good. May have a couple dings from the bumps of life but in reality we are like those rust buckets. When we were first made we were shiny off the lot. We started cruising through life and along the way we actually got rocked. We have been t-boned, front and rear ended, and after awhile, we flat out give up and quit or give up because life is just to hard to deal with.  But may I suggest to you an alternative: Jesus.

  Jesus is the only one who is able to take our rust, if you will, and turn it into the masterpieces we were created to be. Ephesians 2:10 says that we are God's masterpiece!! Think about that for a second. The GOD of the UNIVERSE made you his masterpiece!! You were shiny and beautiful coming from the factory that God made you from (I.e: the womb. See Jer 1:5) we are to be his witness to all nations. But what happens is we turn away from God. We decide that we know what's best for us or we let situations turn us away from God. But let me assure you that he knows what's going on.

  Now, believe me when I say this because I've been there. I've been that rust bucket that sometimes couldn't even run anymore. I've told God that I've known better than he does and that I can handle this myself. And overtime that rust started to wear and weigh me down to where I couldn't even function in life properly. But when I went to Jesus and gave him my keys to my heart, he began a new work. That's where vs 8-9 come in. It is by grace that i am saved. And notice how it is by grace only. It's nothing that I can say or do but it is the grace of God alone that saves me. And once I did that that allowed me to be and begin the process of restoration. Trust me, Gods definitely put some hard hours Into refining me to who I am today, amidst my futile attempts to tell him what should be done. He knows me inside out. I'll say this, that anything I could have suggested weren't anywhere close to the much better plan that God had in mind.

  So my point is this. We are all broke and broken in our own ways. Jesus is just waiting for us to come to us with our hearts so that he can restore you to the masterpiece that you were intended to be all along. God didn't make a mistake when he created you, it's just that through our humanity, we have allowed our masterpieces to be smudged, crushed and everything in between. My question to you is this: are you willing to allow Christ to come and restore you to who you were created to be. That there ladies and gents: is restoration at its finest; seeing Jesus move and work in people's lives. If you don't know him! I pray that you do. You won't regret it. If you do know Jesus, I pray that you "come back to the shop" so that he can get you to where he wants you.

James 1:2-4

2 Count it all joy, my brothers,[a] when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 And let perseverance have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

   This passage has taken on a whole new meaning for me. Lately, I have been dealing with a lot seeing a lot of new plans going forward with life seeming to go up in a mushroom cloud, even when I felt that God was telling me to go forward with those plans. But, this verse has taken on a whole new meaning for me. not only due to the fact that it wants me to take joy during trials!!! that's the last thing that I want to do! I want to come in and put my foot down and say this is going to be how it is and your going to have to live with it! If i were to do that, that would be counter intuitive. 

   The weird thing about this is if I do "count it all joy" and trust that God will work it all out for his glory and my good, then God can go to work. Basically, If I don't allow this to happen, then I'm interfering with God. I'm getting in the way of his plan and purpose of molding me into who he has called me to be. If I do allow him to, then he can use the spirit that he has implanted in me (that faith) and produce perseverance. I think perseverance could mean a couple of things:

  first, it could be faith in general. By going through this you rely on Christ more than you ever had up to that point and then by relying bring you out of this storm that your in. Secondly, it allows his spirit to become more active in the lives of others. For lack of a better term, he's allowing us to go through that because he's working on someone else at the same time and to keep you from interfering with that growth process he has going for that person. So really he's working with both of you but not ready to allow them to work together yet.

  So the long short of it is this. When you go through trials, it'd not because hates you or has a vendetta against you, rather he's preparing you for your next step in life and your walk with him. Is it going to be tough? Absolutely? Be the worst thing you've ever experienced? Possible. But God will bring you through it. How do I know that...I've been there and done that. Believe me when I say this:I know what it's like to feel like your in hell. But really when you think about it, God always has you in the palm of his hand. He knows exactly what he's doing and how it's all going to come to completion. How do I know that? Because even though I've been through and will go through big and small ones to come, my God promised he would deliver me and he hasn't failed me yet...And he never will.

Just Like Air

Every week in band rehearsal is started with a devotional and last week was no exception. Sure I enjoy hearing what he had to say but was still finalizing the music on my stand before we started. This week in particular, he started off with a story.

"A young man and old man were having lunch one day. the young man asked the older man 'How do you find Jesus? I cant seem to sense his presence.' Later that day, as they were walking by a river; the old man said 'follow me'. once in the water, the old man takes the young man's head and shoves it underwater. holding it there for a long few seconds, he yanks the young man's head from the water. Gasping the young man yells 'HEY! WHAT WAS THAT FOR?' the old man replies calmly: ' the moment you follow after Jesus with the same intensity that you were gasping for air...you'll find him."

We all need air to live. It allows your body to work properly. from muscle to brain function, you body craves air. and yet, we don't even think about it sometimes. its second nature, our body is so use to it that the brain just automatically gets the lungs to expand and contract, keeping air moving in your body. Similarly, we need Jesus almost like it is second nature. We need him in our everyday movements. from just getting up in the morning to making it back to bed at night. At work or school when you get that one person that will not get off your last nerve. To when you've told your kids for the upteenith time to quit drawing on the walls. taking that test you just happened to not study for. everything that we do whether driving/sleeping/eating/ etc...We. Need. Jesus! What is keeping you from relying on Jesus?