How Can I Know My Purpose?

Very rarely in the Bible does God command someone to stay. He opens a door, and then he invites us to walk through it—into the unknown. And how we choose to respond will ultimately determine the life we will lead and the person we will become. In fact, to fail to embrace the open door is to miss the work God has made for us to do.

In "All the Places to Go . . . How Will You Know? ", bestselling author John Ortberg opens our eyes to the countless doors God places before us every day, teaches us how to recognize them, and gives us the encouragement to step out in faith and embrace all of the extraordinary opportunities that await.

Love Won't Let Me Down

When I was searching
Your love was never far
You made a way to get to me
You were the whisper 
Leading me to Your heart
Forever I belong to You

Now I can see clearly
My God You are for me
You won’t let go

Heaven on Earth

When we have asked Jesus to come into our hearts and are saved we get to experience Heaven on Earth. Now we know that we will see heaven the minute we die, but we also get the privilege of experiencing heaven right now. The Bible talks about God's Kingdom coming on Earth, God's Kingdom is when it is on Earth as it is in Heaven.

As long as we live in this world we will always be surrounded by war, murder, hate, abuse and all kinds of evil, but on the inside we can still have peace and joy when we are saved. From the moment we believe in Jesus we are filled with the Holy Spirit and the spirit gives us access to peace and joy every day, no matter what the world around us looks like.

In Heaven there will be no more evil, there will only be love and light, but until then we can have peace and joy on the inside even when the world around us is chaotic. We can experience joy and peace daily in the midst of a dark world when we spend time in God's presence, in God there is no darkness, there is only light.

We become saved when we are finally ready to surrender our lives to Jesus, the one true God. The Bible teaches us that we become saved the moment we believe in Jesus in our hearts and are willing to profess our faith with our mouths. We can profess our faith in God by praying a prayer like this out loud:

Heavenly Father, I trust you with my life.
Save me from my sins, forgive me, and make me new.
Fill me with your spirit, so I can follow you, run my race, living for you.
My life is not my own, Jesus I give it to you.
Thank you for new life, now you have mine.
In Jesus name I pray,
Amen.

When we are saved we become "citizens of Heaven". Sheila Walsh and Sherri Gragg talk about what it means to have citizenship in God's Kingdom of Heaven in their book "A Fresh Infusion of Joy":

"One of the things I learned along the way is that there are both certain rights and responsibilities that go along with becoming an American citizen. The same is true for our citizenship in the kingdom of God.
Did you know, for instance, that joy is one of the rights inherent to citizens of God's kingdom? Listen to this description of the kingdom of God from Romans 14: "The kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit" (v. 17).
That is amazing news! Think about it for a moment. It doesn't matter how many mistakes you have made. . . or how much you have lost.
It doesn't matter how much you have (or don't have) in your bank account. . . or what others have to say about you.
As a citizen of the kingdom of heaven, nothing-nothing-can take away your right to joy.
So open your heart wide today, friend. Don't wait until you think you deserve it, or until your circumstances take a turn for the better. 
Receive Christ's joy."

The Joy of Summer

What I've enjoyed the most this summer is definitely going to the beach and getting to spend a lot of time with family.

The Lovebirds, Mom&Dad.

Having my family from Norway and Finland come visit us was a lot of fun. Of course we also had a couple of arguments, that's inevitable when you have family come stay with you for two weeks in a row. But I don't find arguments to be a bad thing, as long as you solve them in the end. Arguments teach us things about ourselves. Each one of us learns where we still have room for personal growth. Nothing helps us grow and mature as much as human relationships do. Relationships are difficult because they challenge us to become better people every year.

Once I heard a pastor say: "God sees that we need to grow so he gives us a husband/wife. If that's not enough he gives us a baby, and if that's not enough he gives us one more baby." LOL. Yep, few things will make you grow more spiritually and mentally than close human relationships. :)

Another thing I'm enjoying this summer is the beautiful gifts we got for our Renewal of Vows. My stepson gave us a nice candle and my brother and his girlfriend gave us some encouragement to hang on the wall. "Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain." So true! :)

My summer obsession: Watermelon lemonade. I can't get enough of this drink!

One of my favorite summer memories: Spending many hours in the sun with family at Cobourg Beach.

The Summer bummer:

Nr. 1) The bugs. There's way too many bugs everywhere in August! Every time I try to relax outdoors the bees chase me out of my own backyard! I'm so happy that they have a very short lifespan.

Nr. 2) The rain. This summer has been much more rainy than the average Canadian summer. One minute you're enjoying a nice day at the beach and the next moment dark clouds roll in and you're forced to run towards the parking lot as the rain starts pouring down. When my Scandinavian family came to visit we went to Wasaga Beach and got about one hour of nice weather before we had to run to the car. The upside of a rainy summer is that you appreciate the warm and sunny days even more. When it's weekend and happens to be sunny you scratch all your plans, pack the car full of beach toys and head to the beach. It's called "summer priorities".

The rainy spring and summer has also led to Lake Ontario being flooded. The waterfront of Lake Ontario looks quite messy at certain places.

Shawn

Grace vs. Performance

“When my own personal grasp of the gospel was very weak, my self-view swung wildly between two poles. When I was performing up to my standards—in academic work, professional achievement, or relationships—I felt confident but not humble. I was likely to be proud and unsympathetic to failing people. When I was not living up to my standards, I felt humble but not confident, a failure. I discovered, however, that the gospel contained the resources to build a unique identity. In Christ I could know I was accepted by grace not only despite my flaws, but because I was willing to admit them. The Christian gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to die for me, yet I am so loved and valued and that Jesus was glad to die for me. This leads to deep humility and deep confidence at the same time. It undermines both swaggering and sniveling. I cannot feel superior to anyone, and yet I have nothing to prove to anyone.”

Timothy Keller, in his book “The Reason for God—Belief in an Age of Skepticism”

Religion is to constantly perform, trying your best to live up to a certain standard. All humans are religious beings, you don’t have to join a world religion to be religious. People tend to apply religious behavior to all kinds of things; sports, fitness, dieting, parenting, career, strict devotion to a certain ideology etc. Jesus came to end all religion, to free us from the need to measure up to a certain standard, to free us from the need to prove our worth. Ironically though, many Christians have turned Christianity into a religion too.

Religious behavior says: “to be good enough you must be able to live up to this standard (in your career/parenting/sport/world religion etc.)”. God’s love says: “I know you are deeply flawed and if you would just be willing to admit that fact, my grace is waiting for you. My love for you will never be based on your performance, it is freely given, and every time you mess up my forgiveness is already there waiting for you.” Following Jesus is simply to accept God’s love and grace. When I have accepted God’s grace I am free, I have nothing to prove. I can now be confident yet humble at the same time. I can enjoy living a life of love but when I fail I don’t need to beat myself up because I’m already forgiven. My worth is not defined by my performance, it’s defined by God’s endless love for me.

Helping Others

Every Christian is called to love God and love other people. Helping others is a way for us to let God use us for his purposes. God knows every need in the world and each one of us were created to meet one (or a few) of those needs in the world. It's not my job to save the world, God is the only one who can heal our broken world, but it is my job to do my part in helping God heal the broken parts of this world.

God has the power to create miracles, I am only an instrument in the hands of the great I AM. It's beautiful to see the change that can take place when each person within the church decides to serve and fill a need that they feel passionately about. When each person within the church decides to give sacrificially of their money, time and resources things change. When we give only out of our leftover money, time or resources not much will change, but when we make helping others one of our core values in life big change can happen. Together we can be the change.