CompassionArt

Compassion is who I am.

A good friend gave me a CD that was called CompassionArt and inside the case was a CD and a DVD. I listened to the CD (it was very good!) and there was also a DVD that I then watched and it was good.

So here were these people, all extremely successful as Christian musicians coming together to write songs and work together and study and worship together and drop all boundaries to make music that would earn money for the poor in the World.

I was totally enthralled by all of this. Here were people who, some of whom, I actually remembered, coming together and doing this! It was huge! And I initially thought that this would teach me something that I didn’t realize about compassion.

But after a while I realized that I am compassion, not where they see the need, but I am compassion.

I have learned some simple things though. For example, I will stop using hair color because there were men, at least at my age, who let their grey hair show. Popular men who could have afforded anything, but they let their grey hair show!

So I did learn things like that, but I also learned that compassion is compassion wherever you show it. They saw the need across the ocean and formed a way to meet it. It took a great deal of commitment and work but they did it and I’m proud of them.

However, I also learned that it’s ok to show compassion here too! I see the need for compassion everywhere and I strive to meet it wherever I can.

No, it’s not across the Ocean and No, I don’t have thousands of dollars & nothing spare, but it is CompassionArt nonetheless!

To Know

This is such a critical part of the Human lifestyle and existence and a value of success in this World.

God gave us this ability to know things, but mankind has and continues to define and redefine it to suit their acceptable needs.

Think about it. Schools, jobs, courts and income (to name just a few) are defined by it, so basically the entirety of our human life is dependant on it.

Everything and I mean everything is based on what YOU do or do not know. But God (knowing how this would turn out) took it one small step further: He said that Spiritual things would be more than we could ask or imagine. So, in effect they would be more than we would or could know.

Wow. That says a lot. Today and every day.

But since “to know” is such a huge part of the Human life unfortunately even though God has already helped us “to know” in His word and continues to give us more than we could ask or imagine in our every day lives we have included “to know” in our Churches too!

And “to know” is not Godlike or Christian, however to see and recognize and be thankful for receiving more than we could ask or imagine is.

I encourage each person to read this and understand this and apply this. Because it makes no sense at all to Humans but it makes total sense to God.

I have just noticed something in me that I want to tell you about. I am not telling you this because I am proud of it, no I am telling you this because it is not from me, it is a gift and I’m happy that it has been given to me.

I don’t know when I actually got it but I have been pleased to see that I actually have compassion for others! I have wondered about myself for quite some time because there are times when others just want to hurt me and I feel many things, but compassion is not one of them.

I have wondered if I am wrong and I’ll just have to wait until judgment to find out. But just evaluating (my personal opinion) my current friends, all of them have actions that would normally offend anyone, but they do not offend me. No, they are doing the best that they can and things do happen.

And I do understand. I have been given the ability to see past the current situation all the way to their heart. And that feels good.

I imagine that many others feel this way too! And because it’s not normal, it must be a form of what is called “handicapped” or “disabled”. So, I guess that I’m not in such a weird place after all because I have lots of company.

I just received an extremely negative telephone call. I won’t go into details, but effectively the man said You’re on your own, we can’t help you.

That hurt. I didn’t expect for that to happen and the more I thought about it the more I probably felt just like the Apostles felt on the boat when Jesus was asleep and that storm threatened to sink the boat, take their lives and they went to wake up Jesus and He was able to calm the storm, the winds and the sea and they were shocked!

So why when a human tells me that I am on my own does it shock me? Weren’t the Apostles on their own too? No they had God with them. And they were on Earth. So what’s different for me? Nothing because Jesus is with me just like He was with them too.

So what do I have to be concerned about? Just like the Apostles, nothing.

A very interesting thing happened to me today. Very interesting indeed.

On Sunday my roommate went out and so I was totally alone. I went into the bathroom in my wheelchair and stood up using my floor to ceiling pole. Sounds fine, duh! Not so quick… I fell down onto the toilet totally hard because I lost my balance.

I was shocked to see that the toilet had not broken because I FELL HARD! Well, everything seemed to be fine though, so I just was pleased and so I said a prayer of thankfulness.

But today being Wednesday and 3 days after the fall, I got up fine, planned a busy day, wheeled out to eat breakfast, ate it and then talked to my wife. And after I had hung up…my back started HURTING!

So badly that at one point I wondered WHAT had gone wrong! So I called the Doctor and made an appointment for Friday. But I just continued to get worse and so I went to bed.

And after only a short time I called a friend to take me to the hospital. At the urgent care center I just closed my eyes because the pain was so intense.

Then after they finally called me in, my friend had to leave for awhile and they came and got me and took me for some x-rays. After the x-rays, the doctor came in and said You clearly have a broken rib! It’ll take about 4 months to heal, there’s no treatment but there is some medication!

So…I did fall very hard and I’m blessed that I didn’t feel anything until today!

Heaven in the real world…

I’m a very happy person. I am. The Lord is my shepherd and I do not want. If you consider Earthly standards, I have literally nothing. But if you consider Spiritual or God’s standards, I have everything. So, I quite often feel that I view Heaven in the real world. And when I say real world I don’t mean that the real world is someplace different, no it’s the World in which we live every day.

He’s always here whether you’re His child or not. He doesn’t just appear when the time is right, no He’s smarter than that and He has a plan that He’s keeping.

Do I know the plan? No, I actually don’t, but who cares?

Even though some may think that they have the upper hand, they don’t but God does.

He works in our lives. Quietly I’ll admit, but He does work nonetheless. Every moment of every day there is proof, even if we don’t see it or realize it, it’s there because He is there.

That is one of the things that I have and never question. I never do.

I just wish everyone could feel what I feel and see what I see. It’s awesome and He’s awesome.

So I call it Heaven in the real world because it is. In Heaven we’ll be with Him, but we are with Him now. I’ll admit that I don’t know what Heaven will be like, but I have God now, so I do see Heaven in the real world.

Be Careful…

Matt 7:1

7:1 "Do not judge , or you too will be judged.
NIV



Don’t judge other people or others things. A more “today” way of saying ‘judge’ is ‘evaluate’. In our culture today evaluating things is the way many humans feel that is a normal human thing to do.

Well, is it? Here’s one for you:

When you judge, what does that do? Decides if something was right or wrong; or good or bad, etc.

Ok.

When you evaluate, what does that do? Decides if something was right or wrong; or good or bad.

Wait just a moment. Don’t those two sound just alike?

Yes they do, so possibly being a normal human thing to do is not the real Christian thing to do…according to Jesus it’s not, but you have to go with what you feel.

Because Jesus is your judge.

Ps 46:10
10 "Be still, and know that I am God
NIV

I went to a Christian counselor today, the same one who helped me so much before, and in one session I told him about my lawsuit problems which are astronomical (to say the least), and he gave me a key that I already had but was not (for some stupid reason) using he just looked at me and said: well, you may just have to be still and know that He is God. He has said before that people shouldn’t do things like this, so whether or not you win on Earth in court—you’ll win.

What a huge weight that lifted off of me! And, of course I thought Why didn’t I realized that before? But of course I didn’t know for sure, but I can only guess that I had let my Earthly problems take center stage over my Heavenly knowledge.

Do you ever do that too? If you do it’s a useless waste of time, because Heavenly things will always win over Earthly things in the end.

So the Bible is correct! And that’s what we should be banking and depending on.

Sinners

I would like it very much if I could say to you that this is not my personal opinion, but that just is not true.

There also may be some people that will see just a little too much of themselves in this and they’ll become a little uncomfortable and not like it. And if the happens then just delete it.

But the reason that I’m bringing this up is that I am faced with this problem on many fronts, both natural relational and friendships.







Rom 5:6-8

6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
NIV

We’re only human, NOT GODLY. Christ dying for us did not change who we are, but it did make it available to us that we could finally be accepted by God, fully.






God gave us grace. Eph 2:9-10 states that it was a gift from God and not something that we could earn ourselves so that no one could brag about what they were or were not doing. It was a gift that you did not earn. Period End. It wasn’t yours, it was a gift. God’s gift to you.

In Kentucky this was very evident to me. My family and I volunteered at a group home for boys who had trouble with the law. So it was kind of a step that because of their age before jail or prison.

Now all of us went twice a week to see them. Our Church, unfortunately, did not agree with what we were doing, were unsupportive and would not allow us to bring them to Church because there was concern that others would be afraid.


That exact problem is still a problem among Christians today. As long as you “act” like a Christian per the agreed upon societal definition then you’re ok, but IF you screw up and don’t meet their definition, then you’re a sinner by their definition and you’re not worthy of their company and they won’t talk to you or even be around you at all.

Maybe I’m wrong, but Jesus wasn’t like that. I’ll refer you back to the beginning scripture. Christ did not wait until we were good enough to come, no He came anyway. And because God is omni everything, He already knew that we would sin (we were sinners already!) but He came to help us and to help the Father.

And He lives in us, so why can’t we do it?



Were I and my family wrong in Kentucky? NO! That may have been the first glimpse of Jesus for some of those boys and for some maybe the last.

But I don’t understand what you’re saying. As Christians, doesn’t Jesus live in each of us?

Yes He does and it is our primary responsibility to make sure that others see Him, not us or our personal interpretation of “religion”. Who do we live for? Jesus. Not human founders of human Churches—just Jesus.

So what I’m saying is that first Jesus is without a doubt spiritual and we are without a doubt physical. And there are differences that no one knows better than Jesus Himself.


And secondly that we have been forgiven but not changed. So we have all sinned before and because we’re human we still do. But the forgiveness that we now have is once and for all.

So when we do sin, it’s been forgiven once and for all. In other words Jesus came, lived and died once. He overcame death once and He ascended back into Heaven once. Because He came to become a physical being once

So when a fellow Christian sins then don’t look at it as their personal or spiritual failure, no, just recognize who Jesus has made them to be in Him but that they are only human still, so things may still happen here. Because they have been forgiven once, they WILL go to Heaven so love them because Jesus died for them. So He knew it long ago and that’s why He came and died. They were worth it to Him, so they should be worth it to you too.

The boys at the group home in Kentucky were to us then and people still are to us now, but are they to you?

Personal Opinions

Opinion
A belief stronger than impression and less strong then positive knowledge.

So a personal opinion is the same thing but it is related a specific person and their feelings or thoughts or beliefs. It is not the correct or only thought, now it may be, but it is in fact just the opinion of the person expressing it.

And EVERYONE has an opinion! So some will agree or disagree with an opinion that is given because it does or does not agree with their own opinion.

And sometimes people forget that something is just their opinion. And they become offended if you do not agree with them.

But if that happens then you can try and explain how you feel and why you feel the way you do. You’re kidding! Does that take care of it?

Maybe yes and maybe no. It really just depends on whether or not the other person agreed with your opinion on how you felt. They may and they may not.

So there are many ideas and opinions going around and you have got to always remember that you’re just another one if the many. And, for whatever reason not everyone is always going to agree with you because the way you feel is just your personal opinion.