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It has been seven days since I updated my blog and I feel like a fish out of water.
I haven’t had power since last Saturday-when a surprise noreaster hit Connecticut with heavy wet snow, which brought down power lines and knocked out power and cable all over the state.
Thank God, I still have hot water and a fireplace.
Restoration is in high gear, according to Connecticut Light and Power, and the Governor, but if you ask me, seven days is much too long for my comfort.
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The presumed GOP nominee/presidential candidate is polling behind freshman, Mr. 999, Herman Cain. This of course, is shocking, and seems unreal by many, including the Romney camp. But if I were Mitt Romney, I would be worried because the evidence indicates that–even if he were to win the nomination he may have trouble energizing the all-important Tea Party/independent vote that will play a substantial role in the 2012 Presidential race.
Romney’s problem is best described as his inability to attract and convince real conservatives that he is a worthy candidate for them to galvanize their support behind. He should do well among Northeast conservatives. However, as far as most conservatives around the country are concerned, Mitt Romney is no different that Obama. Hence is difficulty in winning them over.
Make no mistake, the central reason for Mitt Romney’s problems among conservatives is: They accurately perceive that he is not one of them, and having properly recognized this, they become justifiably annoyed at his insistence that he is conservative. While he’s not about to join McCain in calling the Tea Party ‘Hobbits,’ the truth is that there’s no love in the Romney camp for either the Tea Party segment, or the staunchly conservative base of the party. Part of this grows from the fact that he won’t sign on to various Tea Party pledges, but his more enduring problem is that he simply isn’t a conservative and he has too. too many opinions on too many important issues affecting voters.
As I navigate through my Christian journey. I realize that it is not enough for me to only talk about my faith in God, and the goodness of Jesus Christ. But my actions and behaviour should be loaded with Christ like characteristics. I should thrive to be a worthy representative of Jesus Christ. And make sure that the life I live as a Christian, is in sync with the words I speak…Therefore, I should walk the walk and talk the talk.
To do otherwise would mean I have become sounding brass and clanging cymbal. I must practice what I preach, so I can be an example to others.
The Kingdom of God, was the central theme of Jesus’ ministry but Love was the prominent message. Therefore, as a follower of Jesus Christ, I am required to display love. In Mark 12 :31 Jesus commanded His disciples to love their neighbor as themselves.
The apostle Paul, writing to the church in Corinth states: “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.
Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away” (1 Corinthians 13:1-8).
So as I and others continue our journey in faith, we should :”Be . . . followers of God, as dear children; And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour” (Ephesians 5:1,2). We should thrive to: ” . . .Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving our own selves” (James 1:22).
Everyone goes through hard times (Trials and Temptations). It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Sometimes our prayers help us to avoid them. Sometimes not. It’s the attitude we have when we go through them that matters the most. if we are filled with anger and bitterness, or insist on complaining and blaming God, things tend to turn out badly. But if we go through them with thankfulness and praise to God, He promises to bring good things despite of them.
In the book of (James 1:2-6 NIV), He says: 2 “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. 4 Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. 6 But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.”
Believe it or not, when we serve God, His love attends every moment of our lives. He is always there in our midst, working things out for good–when we pray and look to Him to do so. “We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28). His purpose for our trials is often to bring us humbly before Him, to cleanse us of our unrighteous, and to draw us closer to Him.
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Walking in the Spirit may sound like a fairy tale or a fantasy, but it is an important characteristic every believer needs to adopt and practice in his or her daily life. The Christian life cannot be manifested through the workings of the flesh. The old Adamic nature– the flesh, failed in the Garden of Eden— rendering itself unreliable.
But there is hope in Jesus. The God I serve designed the perfect escape route—which was activated the moment I had confessed my sins and accepted Jesus Christ as Lord Savior. “And you hath He quickened, (made alive) who were dead in trespasses and sin” (Ephesians 2:1). “But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.”
So, I am a believer who is made
alive by the Spirit of God. Therefore, I should allow the Spirit to take over my life and direct my footsteps.
Still, walking in the spirit is not an easy task. It does not matter whether I am a Christian for one week or fifty years. The Apostle Paul, himself, a stalwart and role model of the early church struggled with the flesh. In 1 Corinthians 9:27, he said: “But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway” (1 Corinthians 9:27).
In a letter to the church in Galatia, Paul admonishes its members to walk in the Spirit: “This I say then, Walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16). He was responding to disturbing news he had received that the disciples in Galatia had returned to their old Adamic ways. In Galatians 1:6 , he writes: “I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel.” Paul knew from experience that the Christian life is impossible without the Holy Spirit‘s guidance.
Like the Apostle Paul, I am aware that the ways of the flesh are sinful. And I cannot rely on my knowledge of the Word of God to live the Christian life. I need the Spirit of God to indwell me and be with me every day. Without the Spirit of God I am apt to fall back to my old ways. Hence the reason I remind myself daily that I should walk in the Spirit, and not in the flesh. I protest by your boasting which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily (1 Corinthians 15:31):
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