Inspire Me Monday: Idols All Around Us!

 My community Ang Ligaya ng Panginoon (The Joy of the Lord)

is celebrating our 40th anniversary this year

and we are going to have an art exhibit.

Here is my friend and her two daughters

with their contribution to the exhibit.

The theme for these and other paintings is

"We are God's Garden" from 1 Corinthians 3:9.

 "Have I been with you for so long a time 
and you still do not know Me?" John 14:9

Does Jesus get frustrated? He certainly seems so in this instance. 

He told His disciples, "If you really knew Me, 
you would know My Father also. 

From this point on you KNOW Him; you have SEEN Him." 

And Phillip asks right after, 

"Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us!"

 Could Jesus be any clearer? 

If we know Him, we would know the Father! 

And we CAN know Jesus through His Word. 

There is soooo much of Jesus in the Bible, 
EVEN in the Old Testament. 

That's why, on the road to Emmaus, in Luke 24:27, 

Jesus took the time to explain the passages in Scripture, 

"beginning with Moses and all the prophets", 

all the things concerning Himself! 

If we take the time to discover Jesus in the Scriptures, 

we too will say like the disciples:

"Were not our hearts burning within us?" Luke 24:32

Lord, help us to know You through Your Word! 

Guide us though the Scriptures, and give us eyes to see You!

 "I am the vine, you are the branches." John 15:5

These words of Jesus, 

part of His farewell message to His disciples, are very powerful. 

If we can only understand the true meaning of this short phrase, 

we would be different persons. 

After Hudson Taylor contemplated these words, 

he considered his life "an exchanged life". 

Hudson Taylor wrote: 

"The Spirit of God revealed to me the 
truth of our oneness with Jesus 

as I had never known it before....

I saw not only that Jesus will never leave me, 

but I am a member of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. 

The vine is not the root merely, but all- 

root, stem, branches, twigs, leaves, flowers, fruit. 

And Jesus is not that alone- 

He is soil and sunshine, air and showers, 
and ten thousand times more 

than we have ever dreamed, wished for and needed. 

Oh the joy of seeing this truth!"

Why was it so exhilarating for Taylor to realize this? 

Hudson Taylor had been a mighty missionary of the faith in China 

for several years but he had been exhausted and 

depending much on his own strength and resources. 

He had been striving for faith! 

He wrote in a letter about this discernment,

 "...It is a wonderful thing to be really one
with a risen and exalted Savior, 

to be a member of Christ! 

Think what it involves! Can Christ be rich and I poor? 

Can your right hand be rich and your left poor? 

Or your head be well fed while your body starves?

No more can your prayers or mine
be discredited if offered in the name of Jesus!"

 Hudson Taylor founded the China Inland Mission and 

went through much suffering and challenges in doing so. 

His first wife and his second wife, and I don't know how many children died before him. 

His family was almost killed in a riot in China! 

His house burned down to the ground, nothing left! 

He had to depend much on God for providing not only for himself and his family, 

but also the mission. But God did provide! 

"The branch of the vine does not worry, and toil and rush here to seek for sunshine, 

and there to find rain. 

No, it rests in union and communion with the vine; 

and in the right way, is the right fruit found on it. 

Let us abide in the Lord Jesus."

When Hudson Taylor died, his second son, Howard Frederick said of him, 

"Christ was the reason for his peace, His power for calm."

 "Friends, why do you do this?" Acts 14:15

I can imagine how Paul must have sounded! 

He shouted this out after he and Barnabas healed a crippled man. 

There was great amazement and people were announcing that 

they were gods in human form. 

Even the priests of the temple of Zeus brought them flowers and oxen as sacrifices. 

Paul and Barnabas tore at their clothing in dismay!!!! 

Have you ever seen a movie star or a singer with a huge fan base 

tear their clothes or their hair in distress? 

I haven't, although I have seen many young people 

go crazy when they see them perform!

Billy Graham, the evangelist, told of a time the Bee Gees were at the top, 

their Saturday Night Fever album was a record breaker and sold 15 million copies, 

and they won a Grammy for Album of the Year. 

Barry Gibb should have been on top of the world but he said 

he "felt inside like warmed over death." He was miserable. 

He had lots of money, several expensive cars, crazy fans, 

a handsome movie star face and a falsetto voice people wanted to hear. 

Fame, Popularity, Good Looks, what more could one ask for? 

A lot of us think that if we only could have more money, 

if only we could have a prettier nose, if only we had more friends....

But if we had all the wealth of the whole world, all the beauty, all the fame, 

all the power, but we do not have anything to feed our soul, what happens? 

Matthew 16:26 says, "And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul?" 

There are "idols" all around us. 

Anything we make more important than God is an idol. 

It can be our children, our job, a longed for boyfriend who doesn't want to get married, 

a relationship we are fighting to keep at all costs, 

an iPhone 6 we are saving for, whatever!

Only one thing is important- 

"But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness,

 and all these things will be added to you." Matthew 6:33

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Jean Ferguson at Soli Deo Gloria

Trusting Tuesdays

What We Accomplished, Wow Us Wednesdays

The Weekly Creative

Funday Monday, Small Wonder,  Word Art Wednesday

Worthwhile Wednesdays

The Beauty in His Grip, Unite, Counting My Blessings

Weekend Blog Hop, What We Accomplished

Creative Mondays, Gracelaced Mondays

Titus 2 Tuesdays

Super Handmade Sunday, Sacro Speco

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