365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 299

Please excuse the way I think. I hope nobody will find this offensive in anyway but I worked an analogy in my mind on the way home from work yesterday. Jesus is like a pancake. Yes, I said, pancake. Let me break it down for you. The first side cooked on a pancake always seems to come out golden with a nice golden rim around the edge, kind of like a crown. hmmmm..... Than you flip it over and cook the other side. This side always looks different, often filled with little holes and is not the golden color but a combination of tans and white. The first golden side of the pancake is Jesus, the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, son of God. The second side of the pancake with the holes is Jesus, the son of man, a human being, a person like all of us. Jesus is both of these sides of the pancake. He is the son of God come to earth in human form. Emanuel. If you have studied any other religions, you will know that this is the one and only true God who has come down to us.
Now pancakes can be made in different sizes. You have the dollar size, the standard size and king size. The dollar size pancakes are those people who have Jesus in their hearts but in a small way. They may only think about Jesus once a week at worship service or when a desperate need arises in their lives. The standard size pancake person is actively trying to consistently have Jesus in their lives and they do a pretty good job of it with bible study, worship and prayer. The king size pancake person is the kind of person where Jesus is the central part of their whole life. It is what motivates them in all they do and all they are. This is the person who not only does bible study, worship and prayer but also actively uses their gifts from God for God's calling for them. The good news is we are not stuck being one kind of pancake. Those dollar size pancakes and standard sized pancakes have the opportunity to choose to pour out a new pancake each day and make it bigger, letting Jesus become more and more the central part of our exsistence, our goals, our motivation. Even King sized pancakes can choose to keep being big pancakes but even add some special ingredients like peanut butter, chocolate chips or protein powder. This can give more impact to the King size pancake. So, the next time you are making pancakes or eating pancakes, I hope you will remember this analogy and let the Holy Spirit help you in becoming a specialty King size pancake for Jesus. If you are not yet a pancake, think about letting Jesus into your heart.
1 John 5:11-12 “And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life”

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 170

Most of us are not prepared for Motherhood. It is an on-the-job training kind of job. Mary the mother of Jesus, was not prepared for motherhood either. She was still by our standards today very very young and only just promised in marriage to Joseph. But she took on her new role as the mother of the Son of God and God gave her what she needed. I remember that first year of motherhood being extremely challenging. Not only with the lack of sleep, the change of my whole world by becoming a stay-at-home mom but also adjusting to being married as it had only been married 10 months eariler.  It was to say the least a very rough road. In hindsight, we can look back and wish we had done things better but it is what it is. We are the mothers of our children because God planned it that way. You may not have had the best of mothers but know that despite what we do as mothers, God's plan is at work. Mothers are not perfect so we have to let go of the past and be able to forgive and love. Just as our mother's tried their best at the time, we too must try our best and ask God for the help we need so we can embrace our mother's and ourselves with forgiveness and love. Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers of the world!
Deuteronomy 5:16 Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it my go well wit you in the land the Lord your God is giving you.