Saturday, September 10, 2016

END OF A SEASON! Sept 2008 - Sept 11, 2016

WE ALL HAVE completed many seasons in our lives.     Each grade is an end of a season, in growing up, when we receive our academic certificates.   When we complete our final degrees in higher learning we come to the end of our academic achievements.   Our singleness season comes to an end, when we marry.   Children come and some marriages end; loved ones pass away and new seasons begin.  
JUST LIKE all seasons of life, one ends and another begins.     Which came first?  Spring, Summer, Fall, or Winter?    Living in California the seasons were not as defined as they are in Oregon.   I loved the climate in California, but in Oregon the definitions are amazing!
WHEN I BEGAN writing Morning Glory, it was a beginning of an exciting season for me!   Growing old was not one of my favorite things to do!   But at 70, my life became fuller and richer in Jesus Christ.   Don’t get me wrong!   I loved the process in becoming who I am today.
I have loved everyone who came into my life from the beginning.   Today I even love the ones I could have done without!   Probably the feelings were mutual!
SOME AVENUES, in the paths I have taken, took me off course.  But Morning Glory gave me purpose thru God, who gave me a desire.   Jim gave me encouragement.  The internet gave me a tool and God’s church gave me a place.   This season started in a person of age, who by the world’s standards, was almost done.   I am not done, but Morning Glory blogging is!
“STUDY TO SHOW thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed but rightly dividing the Word of Truth!”   2 Timothy 2:15 (kjv)     We are to do our best to please God!   Every Christian is to take this passage to heart.    The scriptures tell us that it is God, whom we are to please.    I have carried this verse close to my heart ever since I memorized it in my 4th grade Sunday School Class.    Second to this was; “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.  Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and , lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.  Amen”   Matthew 28:19-20 (kjv)  
CHRISTIANS are to share their faith in Jesus!    Ultimately, as we go, we are to share the Gospel, and to make disciples!   As a woman I always hesitated, even though I never was shy in letting others know about my faith.   In Morning Glory I became the teacher and my goal was
to bring Christ’s followers into a closer walk in their everyday life.  I shared by giving milk to those who still needed it, and meat to those who were ready to digest it!
THREE THINGS I want leave you with.   Number one is to study the Word!   Reading it is good, but when you are in it to apply it, things will begin to happen in your life.   Number two is, do not be afraid to tell someone that you believe, “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God!”   What a difference that can make in your own life.   What a difference that can make in another’s life, even though you may never know about it!  
THIRDLY, but by no means last; become obedient to God’s Word and be baptized.   Many want to write baptism off as merely an outward expression of an inward conviction.   But it is far more than that!   We are baptized into the trinity, embodied in Jesus.   Through baptism we receive forgiveness of our past sins, and we can be forgiven for all future sins, when we ask forgiveness!   This, in itself, is important!  But also, upon baptism, we receive the “Gift of the Holy Spirit!”    The Spirit does not just come upon us at will, but comes to dwell within us.   Nowhere else does a believer receive this gift, except thru baptism.   Jesus said to do this; so do it!  It is not our invitation for others to do this, it is God’s invitation!   How can you refuse?
THANK YOU LORD for giving me this special season; “Morning Glory!”   Morning Glory readers; “thank you!”  My life is in a new season, for God is good!   Jane Ann Crenshaw  9/7/16
   

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