Madison Excerpts

I mean, I know that life as a believer is hard… I know it’s difficult on many levels –Jesus, Paul, the apostles… they all understood the price of following. Yet there is a beauty that belongs to life because we’ve been saved. In a sense, life loses many of its cares because we have the proper understanding that this is all temporal… we have the hope of eternity in our hearts… we have the power of the Spirit to live victoriously. So many of these aspects are such a reality to me…

"...Life is not about you!” It’s not about this struggle that you have made it… it’s not about living merely in light of tomorrow --or yesterday. Your sin has no eternal claim on you… furthermore, this life is all about God… read His word! It’s ALL about Him! *sigh*

...worship brings such focus, clarity and joy –because in those moments, we are doing what we were created to do… we are tasting a tiny bit of eternity where we will sing praises to God forever. When we read His word, we are renewed and refueled to live in this world… we are equipped to battle the enemy and we are free to live life to the fullest for Christ. When we spend time in prayer, we experience God’s peace… We come to know His heart… we come to see the world the way that God sees it… we know Him better through all of this –and then, and only then, when we have “right view of God”, does everything else fall into place… right view of self… right view of life… right view of others… right view of sin… right view of trials. Everything falls into place.

written 2/22/09