Evident in Us

Good Morning, Loved Ones,

While spring begins to rise all around us we find ourselves moving into Holy Week and remembering God's great act of love in Jesus. Today's scripture links that great act to our persistence in the face of many obstacles.

2 Corinthians 4:7-12 (The Message)

If you only look at us, you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious Message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives. That's to prevent anyone from confusing God's incomparable power with us. As it is, there's not much chance of that. You know for yourselves that we're not much to look at. We've been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we're not demoralized; we're not sure what to do, but we know that God knows what to do; we've been spiritually terrorized, but God hasn't left our side; we've been thrown down, but we haven't broken. What they did to Jesus, they do to us—trial and torture, mockery and murder; what Jesus did among them, he does in us—he lives! Our lives are at constant risk for Jesus' sake, which makes Jesus' life all the more evident in us. While we're going through the worst, you're getting in on the best!

Let's remember today that even though we may not be experiencing 'trial, torture, mockery and murder', there are always people here and around the world who are daily enduring the same kind of threat and pain that Jesus suffered. On the one hand give thanks that it is not you at this moment. But while that hand is raised in thanksgiving, the other should be hard at work for God's reign in which every tear shall be wiped away and the wolf shall lie down with the lamb.

Lord, I am thankful today that you open our eyes to the realities of suffering here and around the world.

Lord, I thank you for the faith, persistence, hospitality, grace and love I have experienced through our immigrant brothers and sisters.

Lord, thanks for the 200,000 people from around the country who marched for immigration reform on Sunday in DC.

Senor, muchas gracias for people of every faith and even no faith who work for basic human rights and justice here and around the world.

Lord, thank you very gracias for being a patient teacher.

Lord, thanks for letting us in on the best!

Let's spread the gracias around. Gimme cinco!

Pastor Rick
http://gimmecinco.blogspot.com/