no propaganda please Loc: moon orbiting the third rock from the sun

If you have requests for prayers please let me know so I can add on this weekend.

With the turmoil through out the world, we need to be praying for those hostages still in Iran even though th Iranians have been more than accomodated in the present treaty.
Around one thousand, by most reports, Muslim men attacked German women on New Years Eve, and other times recently, assaulting grouping and injuring many, as well as at least one actual rape Please pray for these victims of assault, and pray that God will guide all countries trying to decide whether or not to admit these refugees into their countries

Texans are still recouperating from horrendous flooding and need our prayers and help if we can give it. Several areas will be hard hit by blizzards this weekend. Pray that no lives will be lost and that all will remain safely with their loved ones.
Nana Sue and her husband Tim are having financial problems as Tim can no longer work. They need Gods love and our prayers on a daily basis.

Many members of the team have had health problems and all need God's love and guidance and the strength to cope with adversity. Pray for them all, let your voices be raised in prayer. God knows who they are who are in need and will reach out to them all.

Good news on two fronts- Singularity's grand daughter Chloe is doing fine and had her first Christmas. She smiled happily into the camera for the photos Singularity posted.

We had a call from one of "our boys" that he is now the father of two beautiful baby girls, fraternal twins, around 5 1/2 pounds each and the family is doing well. For us it is always a special joy to see what God's love can do to help children who were abandoned or abused become great adults and loving parents.

Please send prayer requests when you can. I am not as organized as BearK but will do what I can.

no propaganda please Loc: moon orbiting the third rock from the sun

Great news from Archie. Jayme's tumor is benign. It will have to be removed of course, but benign is a great worry off everyone's shoulders Keep the entire family in your prayers. God hears our prayers and understands our needs.

no propaganda please Loc: moon orbiting the third rock from the sun

Crosswalk the Devotional

Owned by Identity, Bought by a Savior
by John UpChurch, Crosswalk.com Contributor

You are not your own, for you were bought with a price (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

Arguments about "identity" should end at this verse. For non-Christians, it’s meaningless noise. For Christians, it’s everything. We own nothing from our hair follicles to our toenails. Every drop of cytoplasm, every hormone, every spark of our synapses was paid for in full. Christ didn’t die for the “good” parts or the parts we let Him have; He wanted all of us.

That’s why it makes no sense for us to justify what’s natural or what makes us happy or what satisfies us. To do so breaks us into pieces, compartmentalizing where we will and will not surrender, what we will and will not hand over to Christ. But the choice isn’t ours. The price paid was for the whole shebang.

The heart loves to mass-produce idols, and identity works just as well as anything else. Deep inside, the hammers of what’s just and fair and right beat in time with our resistance to surrender. We know who we are, and we can’t change.

But the possibility of change is completely beside the point. Even if no change comes before the perfect does (1 Corinthians 1:10), even if the desires never stop, we have no room to act on them or justify them. We have no ownership in ourselves. Not even a partial vacation stake.

It all belongs to Jesus.

Christ urged us to follow Him with the heavy weight of lumber slung across our shoulders (Mark 8:34). That image is one of ownership. Why else would we take up humiliation and hardship to struggle after a bloodied Lamb? It isn’t an image of coercion, but of willingness. Just as the Messiah surrendered Himself to be crucified, we crucify ourselves to admit surrender.

The arguments about orientations or ingrained needs or natural behaviors focus on one thing: us. They point to who we are and what we want. Put succinctly, such discussions are nothing more than navel-gazing. We’re peering down at what makes us tick and letting that determine our course.

And ultimately, none of it matters. That navel we’re peering so deeply into belongs to Christ. He bought it.

We’ve got genes. They’re Christ’s. We’ve got a past. It’s Christ’s. We’ve got failures and foibles and more twisted thoughts than we know what to do with. And they’re hammered to the cross. The ownership of a Savior sidesteps any arguments about identity because our true identity starts and ends with who we are in Christ. It undercuts any passionate defense of “who I am” because who we are is His. Nothing should come between us—the purchased—and the One who took care of the bill.

We must not let the clanging of our idol-making heart drown out the call of Christ to follow how He leads.

Intersecting Faith and Life: Salvation is free, but following Jesus isn’t. The cost isn’t in wealth or doing enough good stuff. It’s sacrifice—the willful surrender of even some of our most cherished beliefs about ourselves and what we need. When we come to Christ but refuse to surrender it all, we’re like the rich man who couldn’t bear the thought of empty pockets (Matthew 19:16). We’re not all in.

However you identified yourself before you got blisters from hauling around your cross, that identity is now the old identity. You gave it up to the One who paid up. You’re His. You’re new.

For Further Reading

1 Corinthians 1:1
2 Corinthians 2:1