come on home - your room is ready and waiting

I have been pondering the wisdom of sheepiness as it relates to Jesus in my life. Jesus says,

“I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.” John 10:14

I’ve heard many times how we humans are sheep, when this verse is read. Not having ever really known sheep, or even met one, it’s hard to see the significance of this first-hand. But did you notice - Jesus is comparing shepherds to the Father. And therefore, he’s comparing sheep to children. Now that I can understand.
Many of us have heard the parable of the lost sheep, one of a hundred in the flock - how the shepherd will leave the 99 and go out and search for the one until he finds it, and brings it home (Luke 15:3-7). I remember all the times I’ve seen distraught parents appealing to the public for help finding their lost child. It’s a common theme in movies and novels but finds its most distressing depiction in real life. From time to time, we hear of a parent who continues to search for the lost child many years later, still hoping, still believing that the child will be found and returned home. I’ve often wondered how they can go on, never giving up, still holding that space in their hearts and lives for the lost child.
Thinking about Jesus in this context, I begin to see that his loved is just like that. He never gives up on us, no matter how far we wander. He continues to call us home to his loving arms, even to the end of life. I knew a man once who, when I visited him at his deathbed, confessed that he had heard God calling to him all his life, but never answered. Now that he was dying, he regretted that and wished he could answer. He cried out to me that he wanted to go to heaven, but he thought that it would be a “cop-out”, at the last moment, to give his life over to the Lord after many years of ignoring Him and living a sinful and unredeemed life. Thank God! I was able to reassure him that it’s never too late to answer the call of the Spirit in our livcs. And I’m certain that as we prayed together, all the angels in heaven rejoiced over this one lost sheep,
who was found and returned to the fold.
Jesus is truly the lover of our souls. To paraphrase an old saying, He will search for you until you find him. Don’t be shy - answer him. And never think that God, loving Parent, will not want you to come home again. He has kept your room ready, and is standing at the door watching for you even now. Come home!

what's in YOUR investment portfolio?

I was asked a simple question the other day: What's the fruit of an apple tree? Apples, I said, with great assurance. To my surprise, that was not the answer! The fruit of an apple tree is more apple trees! The apples are only the means to the end.

I remembered the Parable of the Talents, as told in Matthew chapter 25. The man expected multiplication of his money from those he entrusted with it, not just safety. The one who merely protected the money had it taken from him and given to the one who made the greatest profit. This story, along with the apple tree question, opened up to me a whole new way of thinking about life, about ministry, about spiritual growth: I call it God's investment plan.

So what is God's way of investing? What is the fruit of Laurie? God has given me talents - skills and areas I'm gifted in, both spiritually and naturally. At work, I teach others to use their software at a more advanced level, and seek to make more skilled users like myself. I seek to multiply myself and my skills in them. It should be the same in my spiritual life: make others like me - at least, like me in certain ways. I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, and he has called all of his disciples to "go therefore and make disciples of all nations" (the Great Commission, Matthew 28:19).

I am a disciple, and my fruit is therefore more disciples. How do I do this? By investing myself in others. As God puts coins of discipleship into my hands, so I invest them into others and they increase in discipleship too. God receives a return on his investment - and so do I! It seems simple and obvious now I've realized this, but sometimes the most important things are hidden to us until a simple key thought unlocks the full meaning and we see with new understanding.

So I ask, What is in YOUR investment portfolio? How will you also multiply yourself to bring God a return on the investment God has made in your life? A final thought that may help: Ecclesiastes 11:1 is something very familiar to many of us. "Cast your bread upon the waters, for you shall find it after many days [and much more with it]."

made in the image of God

Genesis 1:27 is a familiar passage to many:

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

It's familiar, but do we actually think about what it means to us today? Do we take it for granted, give it lip service, gloss over it? What about Ephesians 4:24:

... and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

What does this mean? We have not seen God, and we are mere humans: How can we be the image of God? A quotation from the writings of St. Athanasius of Alexandrea (4th century AD/CE) offers us an answer:We were made "in the likeness of God". But in course of time that image has become obscured, like a face on a very old portrait, dimmed with dust and dirt. When a portrait is spoiled, the only way to renew it is for the Subject to come back to the studio and sit for the artist all over again. That is shy Christ came - to make it possible for the divine image in man to be recreated. We were made in God's likeness; we are remade in the likeness of his Son. To bring about this re-creation, Christ still comes to men and Lives among them. In a special way he comes to his Church, his "body", to show us what the "image of God" is really like. As posted at http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bio/152.html, viewed May 2 2017

How can I present the image of God to the world? How can others see Him, not me? Keith Green's song "No Compromise" inspires me and challenges me to allow God to work in me to accomplish just such a miracle in my life:

I want to live, and let you live / Your life in me, that they might see ... 

(click here to listen:  https://youtu.be/GC2vvncga4U)

P.S. Athanasius is my hero! If not for his valiant and long-suffering championship, the doctrine of the Divinity of Christ would have yielded to Arianism, the belief that Christ Jesus was merely "a god".