UNIQUE

ALOHA FAMILY AND FRIENDS,  Beloved of God,  John 3:16,  Rom. 10:9-10

UNIQUE,   “WORTH CONSIDERING”   (Across my desk yesterday.)

Today’s Scripture
“I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself.”  (1 Corinthians 4:3, NIV)

God Loves Your Uniqueness!
Many people are insecure about who they are, so they constantly try to gain the approval of everybody around them so they can feel better about themselves. They end up living to please other people, trying to fit into their molds so they can be accepted. They act one way for their boss, another way for their spouse, and another way for their friends.

If you are going to enjoy your life to the full, you must learn to be confident as the individual God made you to be. You are anointed to be the person God has called you to be! If you are secure in who God made you, you can resist those outside demands and pressures that try to mold you into something you’re not. Don’t rely on the opinions and approval of others. Don’t let them steal your unique creativity. God made each of us with a different purpose. As you continue to grow in your relationship with the Lord, through prayer, worship and fellowship, you will gain confidence in the Lord that will free you from the opinions of man and allow you to be who God called you to be!

A Prayer for Today
“God, I want to live for your approval alone. I need to feel your strength when I feel tempted to change who I am to conform to this world. Please help me to remember that You love me just the way I am! In Jesus’ name – Amen.”

My Thoughts:
On the LORD’s land in which my wife and I live we have an abundance of stones.  Stone walls on four sides,  stone wall across in the middle and stones holding up raised garden beds.  In fact there were so many stones on this property that I gave away 90 cubic yards and am still giving stones away as needed.  And yet not one stone is like another in the whole world.  Every stone is unique.   When Apostle Paul was teaching about building the Church of Christ Jesus in Eph.4:11-16 in the King James he mentions “Living Stones” which is now the name of a church community in Kona.   In primitive times in South America the stone walls looked like this:

https://www.google.com/search?q=stone+walls+south+america&rlz=1C1CHBD_enUS722US722&oq=stone+walls+south+america&aqs=chrome..69i57.11385j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

And it is an exceptional example of what Paul was teaching about for the building of the Church of Christ Jesus.  We, even today, with modern equipment can not build a stone wall like this.  An amazing work of art & craftsmanship.  In the Holy Spirit Paul writes:  Eph.4:11-16 in the Amplified and it reads like this:

11 And His gifts were [varied; He Himself appointed and gave men to us] some to be apostles (special messengers), some prophets (inspired preachers and expounders), some evangelists (preachers of the Gospel, traveling missionaries), some pastors (shepherds of His flock) and teachers.¹² His intention was the perfecting and the full equipping of the saints (His consecrated people), [that they should do] the work of ministering toward building up Christ’s body (the church),¹³ [That it might develop] until we all attain oneness in the faith and in the comprehension of the [^[a]full and accurate] knowledge of the Son of God, that [we might arrive] at really mature manhood (the completeness of personality which is nothing less than the standard height of Christ’s own perfection), the measure of the stature of the fullness of the Christ and the completeness found in Him.¹⁴ So then, we may no longer be children, tossed [like ships] to and fro between chance gusts of teaching and wavering with every changing wind of doctrine, [the prey of] the cunning and cleverness of ^[b]unscrupulous men, [gamblers engaged] in every shifting form of trickery in inventing errors to mislead.¹⁵ Rather, let our lives lovingly ^[c]express truth [in all things, speaking truly, dealing truly, living truly]. Enfolded in love, let us grow up in every way and in all things into Him Who is the Head, [even] Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One).¹⁶ For because of Him the whole body (the church, in all its various parts), closely joined and firmly knit together by the joints and ligaments with which it is supplied, when each part [with power adapted to its need] is working properly [in all its functions], grows to full maturity, building itself up in love. 

Personally, I don’t believe we will get to go home until the Church of Christ Jesus is a perfect match for HIM.

Now the amazing thing about love is that love can not exist without freewill.  So we are expected to build a Church in the Holy Spirit that looks like Jesus out of UNIQUE stones where none are alike.  Not a brick building but a stone building of loving living stones because we want to (freewill) so that the glue is LOVE AND WILL BE LIKE JESUS.     MY,  WHAT A LOT OF FAITH..!!!  GOD HAS FOR US.

I once ask God to share with me HIS definition of LOVE.   And quietly, in my spirit, HE said, “Love is the highest good for the other person, regardless of personal cost.”   That is why the sacrifice of Christ Jesus gives us the epitome of the revelation of GOD’s LOVE.  Our Heavenly Father watched as HIS only begotten son was turned into raw meat and tortured to death so that we could be redeemed.  “He who knew no sin became sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of GOD in HIM.”  Isa. 53, Psalm 22.

So here at our little budding house church in Kealia, HI  tonight we have a small space and time set aside to try learn just how to do this.  No traditions just the Holy Spirit and the Word of God.  And to remember that like living stones,  snow flakes and cherry blossoms we are greatly LOVED of GOD and UNIQUE but not really special.  God loves us all the same.  And HE loves the world even in the sin as HE loves us as HE knows the potential of what they could be in Christ Jesus.  And HE has trusted this BEAUTIFUL TRUTH into our hands to share with this sick WORLD in which we now live.

Yours, in HIS great love and wonderful grace and mercy,   Ken<><   www.Trinity-Aloha.org   (Back issues of “WORTH CONSIDERING” may be found with a link on our home page.)