Jesus you want me to do WHAT?.?.?.?.?.?

Well this is my first attempt to blog.  I love technology!  It is amazing how in a moment of time I can share my thoughts and feelings to all of my friends and family and in a personal sort of way be connected to my community.  I am going to begin blogging and sharing the vision God put in my heart 20 years ago.  I have  had the privilege of working with some of the greatest spiritual leaders you could find anywhere.  There are times when the Timothy's have to become the Paul's.  Metaphorically speaking if all you do is eat and grow spiritually and never take the time to develop others than you will reach a place where you can go no further until you answer the call to minister and disciple younger believers, where the student becomes the teacher, where the son, becomes the father.


Ok enough of that stuff.... Remember this is my first post.


Back in January of this year I was in prayer when the Lord gently spoke to me; "you have to Love your enemies."  I paused and said; you want me to do What!?  So, knowing that this reference was in the bible I looked it up and and prayerfully pondered the scripture.


^{Matt 5:43} “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor^[g] and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you,^[h] 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. ⁴⁶ For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? ⁴⁷ And if you greet your brethren^[i] only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors^[j] do so? ⁴⁸Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.


As I read and reread this passage and compared this to His character which I have grown to know over my life time, I began to get excited. Because if He commands us to LOVE our enemies and not just tolerate them but to proactively Love and pray for them, then that meant that I could grow in this Love, by His Spirit to a place where I could even Love my enemies.  I don't have to tell you that I have a lot of issues. Did I mention I have a lot of issues.  But one thing that comes fairly easy to me is to see the best in people and I may get angry for a moment, but when I stop and consider the situation and realize that the motives of offense may have little or nothing to do with me in particular or it may be an opportunity for the other person to grow and develop themselves.  Than I usually forgive and release the individual from the prison of unforgiveness.  Like I or any one really has the power to lock another individual in a prison.  Actually if you think about it there is a prison alright but usually we are the ones that go in, and every time the remembrance of the offense occurs we replay it over and over and over again.  With each time the chains of the offense becoming heavier and heavier. 


Anyway, as I continued in prayer the Lord began to show me that every major tragedy in history caused by human hands or through thought or speech can be traced to an offense.  I thought to myself, really Lord? So I began to think about this and this is no exhaustive dissertation, but try to think of one for yourself where it occurred without an offense.


At the very beginning Genesis when this whole mess started, Satan told Adam psst..  hey psst... Did God really say don't eat of the fruit? The reason he said that you dope, is because he knows that the moment you eat it you will be like Him knowing good and evil.


What?  God would keep something good like this from me? Was Adam's response.


Well the rest is History.  Oh what a bloody, messy, broken messed up history it has been.  As a matter of fact the only good news is the promise of redemption he would provide through His son.


Listen I don't mean to preach. Honest, you just need some of the back story.  So I left that brief moment encourage having prayed Lord I welcome you to help me grow in Love to the place where I can Love my enemies.  Very dangerous prayer because usually when we grow or develop we under go a struggle or a time of testing where God proves us and helps us through the difficulty.


From that moment I shared with my wife, honey, I am going to a live a life where I do not allow offense to grip my life.  Someone may offend me but I am not going to pick it up. I am going to walk in forgiveness.


Hours turned into days I began to notice a difference in my experiment.  I found that if I even whispered God's name or called out to the Lord BoOM! He was there immediately.  Not like a Genie. But I didn't have to work at moving into His presence. Normally, I would have to listen to worship music, repent of sin, or simply raise my voice louder as if he couldn't hear me right? But when I proactively began to become aware of offense and how was everywhere, it was all around me.  We as americans can be very prideful, sometimes we get offended with the way others look or smell, ignorance, lack of money or social status, beliefs or lack there of.  I had to repent a lot during the first few weeks because I began to see the condition of my heart and because of this as I said earlier the benefit was an unbroken fellowship/communion with the Lord.


Well by for now..... More to come!


Love ya


Ed