I will share about Christian books I have read or listened to.
I will be sharing about my life before and after Christ. I will include stories about my pet and other pets I have encountered.
How to Have a Healthy Church
All of us, together, are part of Jesus’ body—the Church. Together we reflect who He is and what He has done. When we accept Jesus as our Savior, we receive His Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit enables us to live like Jesus by equipping us with unique gifts we can use to strengthen and encourage the Church. And when we listen to the Holy Spirit, He draws us closer to God and to each other.
And because it is the same Spirit at work within each of us, anyone who belongs to Jesus is part of His body, and has a unique role to play. But just as a physical body will not function unless everything works together, the Church will not function the way it was intended unless we are receptive to the work of the Spirit in us, and committed to putting Jesus first.
The Church is healthy when it works together—united in its desire to love people like Jesus did, and serve others the way Jesus did.
Practically, this could look like serving the people we see at the store, on the street, or at a church service. It could look like inviting someone to your house for a meal, helping someone find a job, being a safe space for a vulnerable family, or financially supporting a non-profit.
If we are Christians, then we are part of Jesus’ body—His Church—and we have a unique role to play in building it up. We are called to use the gifts the Holy Spirit gives us to encourage and sacrificially serve each other, staying united in our love for our Savior. When we do that, Jesus shines through us and touches a broken world in need of hope.
So today, what can you do to serve and support the body of Christ? Jesus’ body is our body—so let’s treat it with care. It is this body that God has chosen to show His love to a hurting world.
Don’t Lose Heart
As we start getting older, our bodies begin to change.
Muscles might ache. Hair might gradually turn gray. Vision and hearing might eventually get less sharp. And we, or someone we love, might even struggle with significant or devastating health challenges.
The apostle Paul once offered some ageless wisdom to the believers in Corinth, Greece, which can still be helpful for us today:
“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.”
2 Corinthians 4:16 NIV
Paul knew what it was like to face hard things; he’d been beaten, shipwrecked, snake bitten, and imprisoned.
Earlier in the letter, he’d said, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9 NIV)
The ripple effects of sin’s existence in the world might frustrate us physically, but it ...
