Time to Get my Kit Together

Truly, "back in the day", as we are now wont to say, rather than "when I was a kid", or "in the roaring 60's",  the phrase was

GET YOUR KIT TOGETHER

That's when guys carried "kit" bags, because kit became an easier word to use than "dunnage". This is a great historical explanation of my title and has nothing to do otherwise with today's blog, which is really about getting it together, picking it up and doing the right thing with it.


I try to listen to my favorite TV preacher (also is Alice Cooper's favorite, for a good trivia question), Charles Stanley from First Baptist Atlanta. Of course it is going to be Baptist flavored - he has been a Baptist pastor for over 50 years. My Bible does not tell me what denomination Christ is, though, so I figure after you know that he died for you everything else is rather optional and immaterial in many ways.

BUT

Every now and then Chuck will throw out a "squirmer", as my Dad used to refer to some sermons. This is akin to the Holy Spirit hitting you upside the head with a 2x4 or equally significant wakeup call. Dr. Stanley throws this kind of a squirmer about what God wants us to do about once a year; seems like I always catch it and it rattles in my head for weeks thereafter. I suppose that's why they call it the word of God.

ANYWAY

do not bother to watch this video if you already know what your purpose is in the world, what God has asked you to do, how He is supporting you and exactly where to start and how to go about it. {God told me that, today, He wanted me to send this to you, so here it is}.

http://www.intouch.org/broadcast/this-week-on-tv
 

As always, we appreciate your support and welcome comments. Take 45 minutes to let yourself review, or learn for the first time, some fundamental truths that we tend to overlook in a world, today, that needs them desperately.

And, remember a few fundamentals:

Custom, Routine or Faith?

Thought for the day:
We must be careful when our Christian disciplines become routines. They no longer exist as a part of our faith, but another thing to check off our list of Christian things to do.

We do a lot of things, even the rituals we go through at holidays, such as Thanksgiving and Christmas, that we do not consider "Christian disciplines", without really thinking of the why and wherefor. Faith is, among all else, peculiar.

Most Christians are familiar with, or at least have heard, Hebrews 11:
1 ¶  The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It’s our handle on what we can’t see. 2  The act of faith is what distinguished our ancestors, set them above the crowd. 3  By faith, we see the world called into existence by God’s word, what we see created by what we don’t see.



This is likely in the same category as Descartes' "I think, therefore I am." And, as Geddy Lee sings, "if you choose not to decide you still have made a choice." So, we believe in something - that is faith - regardless of if we do so consciously and actively, in fact despite our conscious and active attempts to have faith.

We don't make faith. Faith is, like it or not, ask for it or not. It is solely accomplished by the Holy Spirit; for non-Christians who don't believe in the Holy Spirit, any faith you have is accomplished by Him, still, although you think of and refer to him as something else.

 As you go about your "normal" activities of Christmas, then, remind yourself that you do this for reasons other than that you have just always done it this way. Tradition is fine, and remember what family faith originated and sustained that tradition, remember how God brings all these good things to us.