These thoughts and beliefs are not necessarily the thoughts or beliefs of those who attend The FUSION! My mind is off the wall and sprat-tic to some and may be under the influence of coffee! If you like comfortable and easy then this blog is not for you! If you like to challenge status quo and look outside the box and think what if and is that possible if I try then we will get along well! I love to call all into question that which is and ask the hard questions of why? P.S. No comments will be posted as anonymous! Get a pair!

Thursday, March 13, 2014

N8's mind: Dark Horse Rising

N8's mind: Dark Horse Rising: History has some pretty interesting stories to tell. Stories about the dark horse who came from behind and no one saw it coming. We could t...

Dark Horse Rising

History has some pretty interesting stories to tell. Stories about the dark horse who came from behind and no one saw it coming. We could talk about people like Steve Jobs, Susan Boyle, Michael Oher, James Braddock, Erin Brockovich, Nelson Mandela, Kurt Warner and J.K. Rowling, just to name a few. We read their bios, cheer their teams on, or watch their movies just hoping to capture their unique brand of never-give-up and translate it into our own situation.
One of these dark horse stories is the story of Mary Magdalene. Maybe you've read this story so often that her strength and courage have been lost in familiarity, but take another look. Mary Magdalene enters the story of Jesus when He casts seven demons out of her. That life-changing moment transformed her world in a bigger way than any infomercial has ever dared to promise, sans ginsu knives! She went from Me, Myself, and Irene to Oprah Winfrey in one ecstatic moment.  Her purpose becomes singular: support Jesus at any cost. She becomes part of the entourage and donates money to the ministry. Her whole life revolves around her Savior as she watches Him day after day perform cataclysmic transformations on people, just like the one that wrecked her world. It was mesmerizing! It was heaven on earth!
And then it all went wrong.
Jesus died and Mary Magdalene’s life didn't turn out the way she'd envisioned it. The purpose she'd dedicated herself to, the cause she poured all her time and money into, the solid ground she had metaphorically built her house on all came crashing down in a landslide.
Anyone who's experienced that landslide gets a jarring welcome to the transitional land of Now What. The first steps into this monotonous territory question everything that led us to this place: I thought I was living a good life, I thought I was on the right track, I thought I had what it takes, I thought I had made all the right connections, I thought...
"But the landslide brought me down..."
For three days Mary Magdalene must have been in agony. Did she eat? Did she sleep? Did she feel like a fool? Those three days may have been an eternity, but Ms. Magdalene didn't give up. It takes courage to keep traveling a difficult road all the way to the end. You have to follow your gut and not your eyes. You have to follow your heart and not your head. Passion has to weigh more than the opinion of people. That's how legends are made. That's how world changers are forged.
Mary Magdalene followed her heart to visit the dead person who embodied her dead purpose. It's hard to give up a life purpose because, really: how do you find a new one? She was stumbling around Now What when she came face to face with the risen Jesus. Funny thing is, at first she didn't know Him. She was wrapped up trying to find that beat up Jesus. She was consumed with tying up the loose ends of her unraveled life. She was headlong in her hopeless cause and didn't even recognize the upgraded version of her Purpose.
Jesus Himself had experienced a cataclysmic transformation. For starters, He was no longer dead, but alive! Mary Magdalene recognized Him as soon as He said her name and her life was wrecked again, in the best way possible. Her purpose wasn't deceased, but it was drastically different. Her life's work wasn't over, it was just beginning! She doesn't go down in history as a failure: she is famous on Earth and in Heaven!

Life has many transitions and not all of them are pleasant.  But it's not all for nothing. It's not an embarrassing loss. It's not always going to be this way. Your future isn't going to look like your past. All those choices you made that brought you to where you are: they were the best choice at that time, with what you knew to be true at that moment. We do our best and sometimes it looks like a complete disaster, but keep going. Keep traveling that road and see where it goes. It may not make sense or be the popular choice. But if you travel the course that God has put before you, no matter how difficult and uncomfortable, you may end up being the dark horse to those who thought they knew you. The dark horse that was forged into a world changer!

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

What's Finished?

Here's an idea to ponder: when Jesus said "it is finished", what was He talking about? Did He painfully labor to speak these words as He was dying on the cross to tell us the obvious: that His life was finished? Or was He talking about His requirement to pay taxes or that His job was finished...those joyful declarations might have been worth the excruciating pain. Heck, maybe He was talking about His laundry--that's never done till your dead-because He couldn't have meant that the work to get close to God was finished since we're still doing it!!!

We still have to work to get close to God, right? Isn't that why we try to act a certain way: to make sure our actions will show God we've earned the right to be loved? Isn't that why we have to say the right things: so our language won't send God away covering His delicate ears? Isn't that why we tell the truth and obey traffic lights and avoid arguments and read our Bible and pray...to prove fresh everyday that we are temporarily pure enough to hang out with Him (as long as we're doing something wholesome) until we screw it up by our own humanity. Are our efforts necessary?

Tell me this one thing: did you receive God's Spirit by doing what the law requires or by simply hearing the gospel and believing it? How can you be so foolish? You began by God's Spirit; do you now want to finish by your own power? Galatians 3:2-3

Call me crazy, but I think Paul's saying that when we believe we have to do something to earn our right to be close to God, we're relying on our own power--not what Jesus did on the cross! 

I don't turn my back on God's gift of undeserved grace. If we can be acceptable to God by obeying the law, then it was useless for Christ to die. Galatians 2:21

This is so cool: “It is finished” translates in the Greek to an accounting term that means “paid in full.” When Jesus uttered those words, He was declaring the sin-debt owed to His Father was wiped away completely and forever. Jesus paid our debt! There's nothing left to pay!

We aren't required to do one single thing to be in relationship with God! Most of us understand that we become acceptable to God because of Jesus' sacrifice, but that's also how we continue in this relationship with the God Of The Universe: because of Jesus' sacrifice! Not because of anything we do!

So, dear friends, this is what we learned today: Don't do ANYTHING to "earn" your right standing with God! Give religion the finger by only doing what you GET TO do! Because God LOVES LOVES LOVES you no matter what you do (or don't do)!!!

Jesus said,"It is finished". Let's live like we believe Him :-D