August Twenty-Sixteen
(the passages I've chosen to share this month are all from The Message which I can't seem to get enough of these days with its fresh and compelling language.)
May
the God of green hope fill you up with joy, fill you up with peace, so that
your believing lives, filled with the life-giving energy of the Holy Spirit,
will brim over with hope!
Romans 15:13, The Message
You’re blessed when
you’re at the end of your rope.
With less of you there is more of God and his
rule.
Matthew 5:3, The Message
You're here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the
world.
Matthew 5:14, The
Message
Watch what God does,
and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents.
Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of
love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant.
He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of
himself to us.
Love like that.
Ephesians 5:1-2, The Message
So,
chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out
for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be
even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense.
Forgive
as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you.
Colossians 3:12-13, The Message
And regardless of what else you put on, wear love.
It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.
Colossians 3:14, The Message
You’re blessed when
you’re content with just who you are—no more, no less. That’s the moment you
find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.
Matthew 5:5,
The Message
So here’s what I want you to do, God
helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating,
going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering.
Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t
become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even
thinking.
Romans 12:1, The Message
Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out.
Romans 12:2, The Message
Readily recognize what he wants from
you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging
you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops
well-formed maturity in you.
Romans 12: 2, The Message
Stand in awe of God’s Yes. Oh, how he blesses the one who
fears God!
Psalm 128:4, The Message
Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace.
—2 Corinthians 4:16, The Message
But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into
our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like
affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity.
Galatians 5:22, The
Message
We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of
compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates
things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing
to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.
Galatians 5:22-23, The Message
I’m thanking you, God from a full heart, I’m writing the book
on your wonders. I’m whistling, laughing, and jumping for joy; I’m singing your
song, High God.
Psalm 9:1-2, The Message
