Quote from Forum Archives on February 27, 2001, 9:58 am

Posted by: masinick <masinick@...>

Dear friends,

I have had a whirlwind of thoughts this morning about what to
share with you today and this week. My overwhelming desire is to
share with you from personal experiences about knowing Jesus
Christ, and what that personal relationship means to me. I also
have a limited amount of time to write, so I struggle with what
to share that best expresses what I feel, and why I feel so
strongly about it.

This morning, as I drove to work, I heard three things that
really touched me, and got me thinking about all of this. The
first was a message from the President of the Moody Bible
Institute in Chicago, who has been talking a lot himself about
really knowing Jesus. He spoke this morning about one of my
favorite Old Testament scripture passages, Micah 6:6-8. This
passage speaks clearly about what it is that God really expects
from us. The kind of sacrifices that God is really looking for
from each of us is not some kind of formula or ritual, but
something a lot more meaningful than that, a change of heart.
God wants us to remember Him in all that we do, but what He
really wants is a humility on our part, recognizing who we are
and who He is. Then, recognizing those things, our response is
to love the things that demonstrate justice, kindness, and mercy.
To me, that is not hard to understand at all.

Then, I heard part of a message on Focus on the Family from a
German woman, who used to be a teenager in Nazi Germany. She
came to recognize what real freedom is all about, and she learned
the value of choice, and how choice really means having an option
between at least two different things. To her, freedom meant the
choice to say yes or no. She learned the difference between
being dictated (as in Nazi Germany) and being able to choose what
is right and true.

Finally, I heard a song on a local radio station, which I turned
on after the Christian station started to fade. The song was a
plea to be loved and accepted. Unfortunately, it sounded like a
song that was a plea from a woman who had been deserted by her
lover. I thought to myself, "I can sure identify with you. I
have been deserted and abandoned before. But I also have been
accepted. Singer on the radio, do you know what it is like to be
really loved?" The love that Jesus Christ offers is not
conditional, it does not depend on whether or not we are "good
lovers"! If that were the case, we'd all be in DEEP TROUBLE!

I have known the kind of pain the singer refers to, but I have
also found what I was seeking, and what I thought I heard her
crying out for in the song: a love that endures.

Do you know that kind of love? It takes some seeking, but if you
earnestly seek, you will find. Matthew 7:7 reassures us of that,
as does Matthew 6:33.

To close, I would simply like to share a couple of seemingly
different scripture passages with you. They were reeling through
my mind as I listened to all of the things on the radio this
morning. I would like you to read them, think about them, and
pray about them. My own prayer is that these words will speak to
your heart, as they have to mine. May the Spirit of God bring
wisdom and understanding to your inner being as you seek Him
today. Amen.

Brother Brian

3 Scriptures: (verses used taken from bible.gospelcom.net/
using the New International Version).

Micah 6:6-8

6 With what shall I come before the LORD and bow down before the
exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with
calves a year old?

7 Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten
thousand rivers of oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my
transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

8 He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD
require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk
humbly with your God.
=====================

Psalm 139:7-14

7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your
presence?

8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in
the depths, [1] you are there.

9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side
of the sea,

10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold
me fast.

11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light
become night around me,"

12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will
shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.

13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my
mother's womb.

14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your
works are wonderful, I know that full well.
===========================================

Psalm 139:23-24

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my
anxious thoughts.

24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the
way everlasting.

=====
--
Brian Masinick, "The Mas", mailto:masinick@yahoo.com
Home page: www.geocities.com/masinick/
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