Living Cross centered

I actually managed to drag my tired old bones out of bed at 6:30 this morning so that I could go and walk for exercise. I really want to make this a habit in my life. I actually have goals in this....

1) I want to get back down to 185. I'd be happy to get back to 190! lol :)

2) I would like to lower my colesterol back down below 180. I would especially desire to get the good and bad ratios back to healthy levels.

3) To walk for 10,000 miles. Now, that seems like a crazy number... maybe it is, maybe it isn't... but it sets a "carrot" before me. Something to shoot for. One thing a marksman does before he takes a shot. He focuses on the target, not the sights of the weapon. This allows the eye to naturally adjust the weapon to line it up with the target. In this way I hope to keep my 'program' sighted in on the goal of 10,000 miles. By God's grace I hope it will be a habit so that when that goal is reached it may be a mere stepping stone to continue on.

Ok, this is getting a little off track... maybe. :) Who knows where this is going. "Is anyone driving this bus?"

My beloved got an MP3 player for me before I left for my two week training. It was my Father's day gift this year. Wow do I enjoy that little thing. What a wonderful little device that I can use to listen to Praise and Worship music, contemporary Christian music, AND (for me this is the biggest thing I was hoping for) I can download and listen to sermons. This morning what a wonderful walk. I listened to a sermon from what I would consider to be a "sister" church - Living Faith Church in Frankliln, WV. The sermon was on a subject near and dear to my heart, "A Cross Centered Life" (Pastor Steve Teter, 6-May-2007).

I have heard similar sermons before by CJ Mahaney (who wrote "The Cross Centered Life: Keeping the main thing, the main thing") and to be honest I struggled to keep my mind focused on the sermon, but God stirred my sould again. My mind fills with doubts, but God is good. I want to focus on what little morsels God places before me, and then allow His Word to nurish my soul and see where He leads.

The one thing that really struck me and inspired todays blog (finally getting around to it...) was that when my Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross and became a propitiation for my sins I am completely forgiven. My sins which are ever before me are completely and totally forgiven. So much so that I am considered to have kept the law perfectly because of what He accomplished. Not by anything I did, only by what He has done. And there is nothing in my life that my Father is surprsied by. Every day of my life is known to Him already.

Now, this does not give me license to go about and sin. The very fact that I am redeamed and forgiven, reconciled, changes my heart. I want to do nothing but please and obey my Lord, despite my failures.

The last thing that stuck in my mind was this. As we walk through this life, as we work more and more on our on going sanctification, we (should) become more and more aware of our sins. This side of heaven we never arrive, we are constantly being conformed into the image of or Lord, why? Because He loves us.



Verse for today:
1 John 3:4-10, ESV
Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he appeared to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's [2] seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.