Lighten Up!

Today I was reading and came across this piece from Mike Yaconnelli. As we begin this New Year this is great insight and advice:

IT'S TIME TO PARTY (excerpts)
By Mike Yaconelli

It doesn't take much to make most of us realize that we have become too serious, too tense, too stressful. The result is that we have forgotten how to live life. It seems like the older we get, the more difficult it is for us to enjoy living.

It reminds me of a description of life given by Rabbi Edward Cohn: "Life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time, all your weekends, and what do you get in the end of it?"

I think that the life cycle is all backward. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you live twenty years in an old-age home. You get kicked out when you're too young. You get a gold watch, you go to work. You work forty years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement. You go to college; you party until you're ready for high school; you go to grade school; you become a little kid; you play. You have no responsibilities. You become a little baby; you go back into the womb; you spend your last months floating; and you finish up as a gleam in somebody's eye.

It's hard to imagine we were a gleam in someone's eye once. What happened to the gleam in our eye? What happened to that joyful, crazy, spontaneous, fun-loving spirit we once had? The childlikeness in all of us gets snuffed out over the years...

.The sign that Jesus is in our hearts, the evidence of the truth of the gospel is ... we still have a light on in our souls. We still have a gleam in our eye. We are alive, never boring, always playful, exhibiting in our everydayness the "spunk" of the spirit. The light in our souls is not some pietistic somberness, it is the spontaneous, unpredictable love of life...I believe it's time for the party to begin.

Copyright 1989 Mike Yaconelli. Permission is granted to send this to others, with attribution, but not for commercial purposes.

Have a light filled day!

Blessed Are The Persecuted

One doesn't get out of bed in the morning and look for ways to be persecuted, or do they?

This morning I have been reading from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount:

Matthew 5:10-12
"Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."

Should I live this day so radically in Jesus, that as my light shines for Jesus, Satan will try and quelch the Light reflected from me?

Came across this qoute from Clarence Jordan, Sermon on the Mount:

"One wonders why Christians today get off so easily. Is it because unchristian Americans are that much better than unchristian Romans, or is our light so dim that the tormentor can not see it? What are the things we do that are worth persecuting?"

That last question - "What are the things we do that are worth persecuting?" that has captured my thoughts. I'm not sure that I am so excited about persecution, in fact, I know that I'm not. I have looked less globally at this verse, and rationalized that it only for those God has chosen to be persecuted. Moments later I realize that God has a more universal application for this verse.

Today, I want my light for Jesus to shine so bright, that I tick Satan off so much by my efforts through Christ for the sake of the Kingdom, that the evil one sends someone my way to shut me up - to quelch my light. Not guaranteed that I will this day be persecuted -- but I am sure gonna give the evil one cause to try!

For King and Kingdom!