Archive for reconciliation

Tread Gently… Christine McDonald

Posted in #PaulthePoke, Christine "Clarity" McDonald with tags , , , on December 7, 2022 by paulthepoke

Tread lightly, tread gently, my Christian friends.
You never know what brokenness that might have been.
It takes doing, saying a thousand good things
To make one bad experience seem okay.
-Christine McDonald

I share this to remind you that helping hurting individuals isn’t an easy or fast process. Prepare your heart, mind, and actions so you can avoid creating a co–dependent relationship. You want to encourage the individual to identify their own emotions, problem solve on their own, learn new responses, and recover a healthy normal. Oftentimes, they have disassociated from their own emotions and thoughts for so long that they don’t know their own feelings. They may have been a slave to someone else for so long that they don’t know how to think for themselves or problem solve constructively. They may have mastered responses to manage each situation, be it good or bad, but those responses were mastered for others, not themselves.

We can’t be their rescuers. But we can be agents of God’s reconciliation and agents of human flourishing. Our aim should be to help them flourish and grow, to be strong individuals who are able to make choices on their own when they need to, who find their own voice and place in the world, who learn to trust their own abilities, and who experience wholeness as the beings God created them to be.

Contact Information:
Christine C. McDonald
636-487-8986
https://iwillriseproject.com/

“Love your neighbor, all of ’em.” -Christine Clarity McDonald

Reconciled in Christ to the Father… Rodna Epley

Posted in #PaulthePoke, Rodna Epley with tags , , , , , , , on May 26, 2022 by paulthepoke

To be a Christian means being reconciled ‘in Christ’ to the Father–the only way at all to be reconciled. It means to lay down our lives, how we want to live, and to allow Christ to live through us instead.

We do not transform Christ into our image, hence 36,000 different denominations. We transform into Christ’s image, which is glory, from one level of glory to another (2 Corinthians 3:18) as we surrender our will (of the old sinful nature) for His will (the new nature of His glory) in love. His glory makes the church one.

To truly belong to Christ, we must be willing to give up everything. We can’t perfect the old nature. We must die to it and receive a new nature: the nature of God’s glory. In dying, we find His life.

Thank you, Jesus, for your sacrifice so that You could give us your garment of glory to wear, that we may not be found naked and ashamed when You come for us. Thank You for the blood You shed for us for forgiveness of sins, and for your body broken for us so we can have healing. Thank You for taking our sins and shame upon Yourself and killing the old nature of sin, and for reconciling us to the Father in You (in Christ).

“God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.” (2 Corinthians 5:19)

“For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works.” (Matthew 16:25-27)

Blessings to everyone!

Who is Christ Jesus and What Does That Mean For Us Today? Part 1… Rodna Epley

Posted in #PaulthePoke, Rodna Epley with tags , , , , , on February 2, 2022 by paulthepoke

Think of God, the Father, as the glory, and think of Christ as another layer of His glory manifested in the Man Jesus. Christ is the express image of the Father’s person, and the brightness of His glory (Hebrews 1:3). This divine nature of Christ is the exact image of the Father. To speak of Christ is to speak of glory. These are interchangeable terms according to the apostle Paul, and author, Carey Newman, in his book Paul’s Glory-Christology. He quotes C.A.A. Scott in, “it is difficult to resist the conclusion that for St Paul… the Glory was an equivalent for Christ.”

We can better understand who and what ‘the Christ’ is by looking at Exodus 33:22 and Colossians 1:27. Also John 2:11; 11:40. When Moses said, “Please, show me Your glory.” God answered, “So it shall be, while My glory passes by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock and will cover you with My hand while I pass by.” The Father used ‘My glory’ and ‘I’ interchangeably. The Father is His glory.

Christ is also the glory, interchangeable terms, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Colossians 1:27)

Jesus existed in heaven with the Father as the Word (Logos) of God before the foundation of the world and God created everything through Him. On earth He had two natures, human (the Man) and divine (the Christ).

Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen affirms this by referencing Luke 22:42, “Not My will, but Yours, be done.” Jesus was born without sin because God was His Father. He had no sin nature, and His mind did not need transforming. He had a human nature (like Adam before sin), yet He heard the Father’s voice clearly and obeyed Him perfectly. He never broke fellowship and daily surrendered His will out of love for the Father. If Jesus had only one nature on earth, there would be nothing to surrender to another, nothing to sacrifice for the sake of love.

God is about intimate fellowship: one makes a request and the other willfully surrenders. Jesus, the Man, did not want to die. The pain, shame, loneliness, and sense of abandonment from His Father was excruciating. The Father was all He had ever known. With a perfect human nature Jesus never gave into His own will, because His mind did not need renewing.

Ours does. Every speck of it.

Jesus surrendered His will even to death, and continually aligned Himself to the Father while He lived. Separated from His Father on the cross, He truly experienced how we feel. Without a human nature, He could not have identified with our suffering. Without a divine one, He could not have reconciled us to the Father. Considering all this, 2 Corinthians 5:19 makes much more sense, “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing” our “trespasses to” us, “and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.”

Carey C. Newman, Paul’s Glory-Christology: Tradition and Rhetoric (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2017), 3.

Kärkkäinen Veli-Matti, Christology: A Global Introduction (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group, 2016), 68.

Daniel’s Answered Prayers

Posted in #PaulthePoke, Angels, Prophecy with tags , , , , , , , , on August 16, 2020 by paulthepoke

Daniel 9:22 He made me understand, speaking with me and saying, “O Daniel, I have now come out to give you insight and understanding.

God has heard Daniel’s prayers. The Lord has sent Gabriel. Daniel gives all the credit to Gabriel. The angel is the source of information and consideration. Gabriel is bringing truth from God.

Daniel 9:23 At the beginning of your pleas for mercy a word went out, and I have come to tell it to you, for you are greatly loved. Therefore consider the word and understand the vision.

…a word went out… God was listening to Daniel’s petition and He responded. Notice God did not waste any time. He responded to Daniel “At the beginning“. A word or dabar in the Hebrew went out. Dabar is translated as a word or speech. God was giving Daniel an answer to his prayers. Yahweh sent the angel Gabriel to deliver the message.

…you are greatly loved… Gabriel provides confirmation to Daniel regarding his position in God. Daniel is told he is “greatly loved” or chamad. The term is also translated as desired. God takes pleasure in Daniel. Definitions provided by Strong’s Concordance.

Daniel’s plea and prayers were answered and then some. Little did Daniel know, he was about to receive the outline of history for at least the next 2,500 years. The information revealed would include the first and second coming of the Messiah Jesus, the construction of two temples, the demolition of one temple, the destruction of Jerusalem, the forecast of the antichrist, the outline for the end times scenario, and the ushering of an everlasting and eternal peace… restoration as God intended.

Daniel’s position in God is no different than our position today. God has blessed us with favor and grace.

2 Corinthians 5:18-19 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

God desires for humanity to be restored as He created us. He loves us all yet He gives us the choice to choose Him.

1 Timothy 2:3-6 This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, Who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is One mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.

Time is running short. The choice is yours…

Reconciliation… Christine McDonald

Posted in #PaulthePoke, Christine "Clarity" McDonald with tags , , , , , on June 12, 2020 by paulthepoke

The pattern of the prodigal is: rebellion, ruin, repentance, reconciliation, restoration. —Edwin Louis Cole

God’s grand plan for all of creation boils down to one thing: reconciliation. From the moment of mankind’s “fall,” we as humans have been on a journey carrying us further and further away from truth as we continue to indulge in the idol worship of self. At the same time, God’s love, though sometimes seemingly nonexistent, has pursued the human heart for generations, culminating in the most incredible act of grace we call the Crucifixion.

It was on a cross that the most innocent of men bore the punishment that should have belonged to all of us. There has never been any act more unfair or more unjust than Jesus becoming a sacrifice for every amount of evil we could conceive. If God never did another thing for humanity, we would still have to recognize this deeply passionate gift of love. Yet His acts of love didn’t end on the cross.

God’s deep desire to be reconciled to His children motivates all He does. Second Corinthians 5:20 (NLT) says, “So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us.” We are Christ’s ambassadors. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” Our expressions of love and kindness help reconcile a lost, hurting world to a loving Father who is eager to heal broken hearts.

Photo by Ketut Subiyanto on Pexels.com

As I share my own story of reconciliation, have hope. God can reconcile relationships. Where it is impossible to reconcile the relationship, He can reconcile our emotions and give us peace and contentment.

Contact Information:
Christine C. McDonald
636-487-8986
Christine.CryPurple@gmail.com

“Love your neighbor, all of ’em.” -Christine Clarity McDonald

https://crypurplemovie.com/

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