I am still considering and meditating on this scripture from Luke.

But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. Luke 6:35-36

Thinking back to the days before I was a Christian at University of Connecticut I am newly in awe of how mercy and grace flow from God because HE is merciful and kind and compassionate and loving and is based on nothing within myself.

Let me give you an example from my life.

My husband and I were at University of Connecticut in Storrs, Ct. I guess it was in the winter of 1976/77 and my (now) husband, Dennis, was in my dorm room. We were studying… HA! We really were!!! There was a knock at my door and I opened it and two female students identified themselves as being from Campus Crusade and asked if they could come in and speak to us about Jesus. Dennis and I were NOT Christians and we kind of gave one another one of those knowing looks that people who have been together a while have between them. We decided to go ahead and let these girls from Crusade come in and speak to us. Dennis and I had silently agreed that we would give these girls a hard time.

AND WE DID! They shared the gospel. I don’t remember their exact words but I do remember ours. We used the Lord’s name in vain and told them what they could do with “their Jesus”. I know, HORRIBLE, right? I remember those girls gently leaving my room and told us they would be praying for us. I was SO insulted!!!!!!!!!!!!

I never saw these girls on campus again, we graduated , Dennis and I got married, had children and about 12 years later God caused me to be born again and I received Christ and a couple of years later so did my husband.

In those 12 years from graduating college to receiving Christ my husband and I continued to mock Christians. We would for fun tune into the Christian TV station and make fun of the people on the shows there.

Everytime we sing this one particular song at church I am reminded of the times that Dennis and I mocked Christians and mocked JESUS! Here are the lyrics to the song:

How Deep The Father's Love For Us lyrics
Stuart Townend
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Lyrics:
How deep the Father's love for us,
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure

How great the pain of searing loss,
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the chosen One,
Bring many sons to glory

Behold the Man upon a cross,
My sin upon His shoulders
Ashamed I hear my mocking voice,
Call out among the scoffers

It was my sin that held Him there
Until it was accomplished
His dying breath has brought me life
I know that it is finished

I will not boast in anything
No gifts, no power, no wisdom
But I will boast in Jesus Christ
His death and resurrection

Why should I gain from His reward?
I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart
His wounds have paid my ransom(REPEAT)

Link to 'How Deep The Father's Love For Us'

In particular, these lines describe myself: “Behold the Man upon the cross, My sin upon His shoulders. Ashamed I hear my mocking voice, call out among the scoffers.”

I DO hear my mocking voice ringing in my ears from that day at UCONN and subsequently as we watched Christians tv and mocked them… but by God’s amazing grace I do not hear condemnation in return… I hear the gospel! I hear that Jesus died for those very sins that I am so ashamed of!!! Jesus bore the wrath of God for MY sin of mocking HIM!!!! He became that sin FOR ME! wow!!

So, now you can better understand how grateful and amazed by grace I am when I read this scripture from Luke. Jesus was kind to the ungrateful and the evil! That is ME!! By God’s grace it is easier to love my enemies and pray for them when I remember my own sin.

I have so often wished that I could go back to those girls who came to my dorm room and ask for their forgiveness. I wish I could tell them that God heard their prayers!!! That God did indeed open up my heart and Dennis’s heart to the gospel! I wish I could tell them thank you for sharing the gospel! I wish I could encourage them and let them know now how grateful I am for their ministry.

THANK YOU UCONN CAMPUS CRUSADE!!!!!!!!!!!

I once was ungrateful and evil but received mercy and kindness from my Savior Jesus!!! Now, that is worth thinking about as I enter 2009!

Joyfully in love with Jesus,

Diane

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Merry Christmas to all my family and friends, brothers and sisters in Christ!
I feel a bit like a cheater this morning as I'm not going to post my own writings but that of a young man, Sean Patrick Muldowney. I've never met this young man, and although we are 30 years apart in age, we have two things in common: we are both graduates of University of Connecticut and we both are followers of Jesus Christ. I met him through Facebook and have recently been acquainted with his blog. I am posting his Christmas Blog today. I encourage you to follow this link and read more of what he has written!
Merry Christmas!!!! may you remember that Jesus is kind to the ungrateful of which I am the most ungrateful! Lord have mercy! O come let us adore Him!

Kind to the Ungrateful
Posted by sean patrick on December 25, 2008

This Christmas Eve, I sit at the computer in the upstairs office at the teen crisis shelter I work at. I supervise three teenage boys arguing and fighting while playing Madden. I couldn’t be happier.
I wasn’t much in the Christmas spirit over these last few weeks. Not many decorations up in my house. The annual family stress and drama reared its ugly head again. I’m so caught up in work and other projects that I haven’t had much time so take in the smells and bells of the season.
That’s why I’m glad to be where I am right now, at work. I’m glad I’m working Christmas Eve overnight, into a double on Christmas morning. I’m glad to be somewhere different; someplace that makes me appreciate what I have; someplace that isn’t so much caught up in the hype.
The following verse has wrecked me over the past week:
But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. Luke 6:35-36
At least two applications for me. The first being, my Father has always been kind towards me in all my ungratefulness. For 19 years I was aware of Christ’s birth, life, death, and resurrection. I paid it litte mind, other than to accepting it as historical fact that Jesus died for people’s sins. I lived carelessly and ungratefully, not knowing I had a need to have a real relationship with Him, until I was confronted with the Gospel. My attitude changed once I was awakened to the fact that Christ did what He did for me. The Father sent Him for me. I was condemned for my sin. Christ bore God’s wrath that was being stored up for me. The Lord woke me up to repentance and faith, and I became grateful for more than a historical act, but for redemption applied.
Now as a follower of Christ, I am commanded to heed Jesus’ teaching here. I am to love without condition, love my enemy, and be kind to the ungrateful, as my Father is. This is especially poignant concerning where I work. I can often struggle over the fact that the kids I work with often come off as ungrateful. I mean, they could be on the streets right now. They could be in an abusive household. They could be freezing under an overpass. They could be hustling or being hustled. We provide them with so much, and sometimes they seem to be less than thankful.
Christ’s teaching here gives me no place to condemn ungratefulness. If anything, I should give thanks that my heart is being searched. I am ungrateful….for a job, a home, a family, a church, close friends, comfort, etc, etc.
Jesus never commands us to do anything that He has not lived out Himself. He was kind to me in all of my ingratitude. He was patient with me in my rebellion. He was longsuffering towards me in my religious hypocrisy. As a believer, He is kind towards me in my struggles and failures, up to and including living out this command that has caused so much self-examination.
All of this reminds me that I’m a work in progress, that I’m not a finished product. My lack of Christmas spirit compels me to set my affections on Christ. The holiday atmosphere isn’t a consolation to me. But Christ’s invasion into human history….His search and resuce mission to redeem the lost….with me specifically in mind….this brings me joy.
His gift to me this season is Himself. My gift to Him is to lay down my life, more and more, over and over. I’m reminded to show love to the ungrateful, as He has shown love to me. I become grateful for the ungrateful, knowing that I am no different apart from God’s grace, and knowing that they may become vessels of grace just as I have.
I walk among those whom Jesus was born among. The kids are more thankful than I realize. Blessed am I this Christmas Eve into the morning. Merry, to know my Savior, and to live His life among those in need. No hype.

It's been a while since I've written. Tis the season of business and all that.

As I write this my son Pat and his wife and 2 dogs are on their way here for Christmas!
This morning I have had a moment of emotional gratitude to God for this past year. Just a little over a year ago Pat returned from a 15 month tour in Iraq. Within a month of his return he was married and has spent the last year living in North Carolina and now Georgia.

God has been so kind and merciful to us. I am so grateful I cannot even express it to its fullest extent!

I just want to give God the glory and I repeat this Scripture that was on my heart the week he returned from Iraq:

Blessed be the Lord!
For He has heard the voice of my pleas for mercy.
The Lord is my strength and my shield;
in Him my heart trusts, and I am helped;
My heart exults,
and with my song I give thanks to Him."
Psalm 28:6-7

THANK YOU LORD!!!!!!!!!!!

I hope that in the business of preparing for Christmas you stop and, as cheesy as this sound, count your blessings. Count the ways God has blessed this year! The biggest blessing, of course, is that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for our sins." EVERYTHING else is gravy!!!
The blessing of salvation is enough, yet, God repeatedly blesses us! His mercy and generosity are beyong compare!

Merry Christmas!!!

Great Post by R.C. SPROUL!


Marley's Message to Scrooge
December 8, 2008 @ 7:30 AM Posted By: Tim Challies
by R.C. Sproul
"Bah! Humbug!" These two words are instantly associated with Charles Dickens' immortal fictional anti-hero, Ebenezer Scrooge. Scrooge was the prototype of the Grinch who stole Christmas, the paradigm of all men cynical.
We all recognize that Ebenezer Scrooge was a mean person - stingy, insensitive, selfish, and unkind. What we often miss in our understanding of his character is that he was preeminently profane. "Bah! Humbug!" was his Victorian use of profanity.
Not that any modern editor would feel the need to delete Scrooge's expletives. His language is not the standard currency of cursing. But it was profane in that Scrooge demeaned what was holy. He trampled on the sanctity of Christmas. He despised the sacred. He was cynical toward the sublime.
Christmas is a holiday, indeed the world's most joyous holiday. It is called a "holiday" because the day is holy. It is a day when businesses close, when families gather, when churches are filled, and when soldiers put down their guns for a 24-hour truce. It is a day that differs from every other day.
Every generation has its abundance of Scrooges. The church is full of them. We hear endless complaints of commercialism. We are constantly told to put Christ back into Christmas. We hear that the tradition of Santa Claus is a sacrilege. We listen to those acquainted with history murmur that Christmas isn't biblical. The Church invented Christmas to compete with the ancient Roman festival honoring the bull-god Mithras, the nay-sayers complain. Christmas? A mere capitulation to paganism.
And so we rain on Jesus' parade and assume an Olympian detachment from the joyous holiday. All this carping is but a modern dose of Scroogeism, our own sanctimonious profanation of the holy.
Sure, Christmas is a time of commerce. The department stores are decorated to the hilt, the ad pages of the newspapers swell in size, and we tick off the number of shopping days left until Christmas. Buy why all the commerce? The high degree of commerce at Christmas is driven by one thing: the buying of gifts for others. To present our friends and families with gifts is not an ugly, ignoble vice. It incarnates the amorphous "spirit of Christmas." The tradition rests ultimately on the supreme gift God has given the world. God so loved the world, the Bible says, that He gave His only begotten Son. The giving of gifts is a marvelous response to the receiving of such a gift. For one day a year at least, we taste the sweetness inherent in the truth that it is more blessed to give than to receive.
What about putting Christ back into Christmas? It is simply not necessary. Christ has never left Christmas. "Jingle Bells" will never replace "Silent Night." Our holiday once known as Thanksgiving is rapidly becoming known simply as "Turkey Day." But Christmas is still called Christmas. It is not called "Gift Day." Christ is still in Christmas, and for one brief season the secular world broadcasts the message of Christ over every radio station and television channel in the land. Never does the church get as much free air time as during the Christmas season.
Not only music but the visual arts are present in abundance, bearing testimony to the historic significance of the birth of Jesus. Christmas displays all remind the world of the sacred Incarnation.
Doesn't Santa Claus paganize or at least trivialize Christmas? He's a myth, and his very mythology casts a shadow over the sober historical reality of Jesus. Not at all. Myths are not necessarily bad or harmful. Every society creates myths. They are a peculiar art form invented usually to convey a message that is deemed important by the people. When a myth is passed off as real history, that is fraud. But when it serves a different purpose it can be healthy and virtuous. Kris Kringle is a mythical hero, not a villain. He is pure fiction -- but a fiction used to illustrate a glorious truth.
What about the historical origins of Christmas as a substitute for a pagan festival? I can only say, good for the early Christians who had the wisdom to flee from Mithras and direct their zeal to the celebration of the birth of Christ. Who associates Christmas today with Mithras? No one calls it "Mithrasmas."
We celebrate Christmas because we cannot eradicate from our consciousness our profound awareness of the difference between the sacred and the profane. Man, in the generic sense, has an incurable propensity for marking sacred space and sacred time. When God appeared to Moses in the burning bush, the ground that was previously common suddenly became uncommon. It was now holy ground - sacred space. When Jacob awoke from his midnight vision of the presence of God, he anointed with oil the rock upon which he had rested his head. It was sacred space.
When God touches earth, the place is holy. When God appears in history, the time is holy. There was never a more holy place than the city of Bethlehem, where the Word became flesh. There was never a more holy time than Christmas morning when Emmanuel was born. Christmas is a holiday. It is the holiest of holy days. We must heed the warning of Jacob Marley: "Don't be a Scrooge" at Christmas.

WHICH CAME FIRST?

1 John 4:19

"We love because He first loved us."

How's that for a simple answer? :)