Posts Tagged ‘restoration’

4
Mar

RESURRECTION PRINCIPLE

   Posted by: pastordiehl    in Uncategorized

“But if we hope for that which we see not, then do we with patience wait for it” (Romans 8:25).

As a pastor, sometimes my heart goes out to church members who are hurting. I pray for the aging man who suffers daily with arthritis pain. I grieve for the older widow who has lost her husband and can’t move on. I hurt for the lady who found out her unbelieving husband of 30+ years is having an affair. I care about the man serving several years in prison for an irresponsible act that gave him five minutes of pleasure. These are all believers who have the Spirit of Christ in their lives.

Our hope must be in something beyond what we are currently experiencing. Painful as life may be, we can’t give up hope in what is coming next. This is what I call the ‘Resurrection Principle’. When something within your life dies or is stolen from you, you have a right as a child of God, to have that restored. You have a legal claim as a joint heir with Christ.

So, we wait patiently for our hope to be fulfilled. Don’t settle for less than being an over-comer.

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25
Feb

RESTORING AND LEADING

   Posted by: pastordiehl    in PSALM 23

“He restores my soul; he leads me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake” (Psalm 23:3).

Now David begins to wander from the imagery of the shepherd/sheep and moves into the God/follower dimension a bit. First, he says that the Shepherd restores his soul. How do you restore a soul? In DeKalb County, when we talk of restoring something its usually an old car, truck, or tractor. But, how do you restore a broken heart or damaged soul? There is no answer to that and people spend millions annually on psychotherapy and drugs in a vain attempt to fix what’s broken within us. But David says the Shepherd does that for free.

Secondly, he tells us that the Shepherd leads us down paths of righteousness. What are those paths? Those are the paths that lead us to God’s blessings versus the path that leads us heartbroken. God has a right way and a wrong way. Often those ways are obsure to us humans, but the after affect in our lives is inevitable. We need the Shepherd to lead us down the right(eous) paths.

How have you learned this lesson through life’s experiences?

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