Jesonian: I’m Working My Way to Earth … March 15, 2015

Jonathots Daily Blog

(2532)

It was so important that Jesus closed out his epic Sermon on the Mount with it:

“If you hear my words and do them, you are wise. If you hear my words and don’t do them, you are foolish.”

In the pursuit of trying to explain salvation to the unlearned, we often simplify the procedure as being a “free gift,” allowing us passage to eternal life.

As a tiny mustard seed, this notion is accurate and certainly says that we are saved by grace. The reason the religious community fails to offer foundational lifestyle opportunities to congregants and impact the world around them by storming and destroying the gates of hell is because salvation is wrapped up in aluminum foil and stored on the shelf for the day of our demise.

We fail to realize there’s a difference between being a Christian and being Jesonian.

A Christian believes in the blood, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is a tremendous comfort and certainly an assurance of life in the great beyond after this passage. But Jesus did not come to merely preach an eternal security. Jesus was more a lifestyle coach than he was an evangelist.

Even though we do not want to connote that any of us are “working our way to heaven,” we must understand that Jesus said we are working our way to earth.

By no means did he ever expect us to relax in our godly salvation, clutching our tickets for heaven and hoping we can make it through.

He envisioned a people who are the light of the world, the salt of the earth, know how to count the cost, bear fruit, multiply their talents, and follow his words faithfully, so that their foundation in the community of earthlings will be solid rock.

We rob one another of the possibility of God’s will being done on earth because we focus on God’s will in heaven.

What makes a life Jesonian?

1. It is a life where we honor the blood of Christ but realize that it is sanctified by his words.

It is not the other way around.

2. Jesus made it clear that there is a Father in heaven and a Mother on earth.

If we don’t know how to live through the rain without becoming disconsolate, we will never understand how to remain humble and thankful in sunshine.

3. God doesn’t work with nothing.

It took five loaves and two fishes from the disciples to stimulate the faith for the miracle of the five thousand being fed. Everyone who came to Jesus made a journey of choice and faith before arriving to receive his grace.

4. It is our faith that makes us whole.

Our faith is the willingness to work with Mother Nature and in so doing, honor Father God. Faith does not begin when we come to God. Faith begins when we take what’s been given to us, believe, work with it, and then come to God and ask his blessing, guidance and assistance.

5. And finally, Jesus wants us to be prepared.

There were five foolish virgins and five wise ones. What made the five virgins wise? Did they pray? Did they fast? No. They thought ahead and brought oil for their lamps.

This is why Jesus said that “he who endures to the end will be saved.”

Yes, we afford ourselves a spiritual salvation through our acceptance of Christ. But we confirm our salvation through the life we live through him.

I am not working my way to heaven. Since heaven is a place of spirit, my passage to such a utopia requires spiritual affirmation.

I am working my way to earth. It is my present dwelling place, where God expects me to have the wisdom to understand my surroundings and instead of rebuking them … find ways to take my faith and let it creatively make me whole.

The producers of jonathots would humbly request a yearly subscription donation of $10 for this wonderful, inspirational opportunity

click above for information on 567!

 

Untotaled: Stepping 58 (Later That Same Night) Did I say no? What I meant was … March 14, 2015

Jonathots Daily Blog

(2531)

(Transcript)

So…

I invited my startled, shocked, surprised, nervous, worried, shattered, partially giddy and apprehensive girlfriend over to my motel room that night to share a pizza and discuss our dilemma.

Of course, being teenagers, the first thing we did in a motel room was ravage one another, unleashing the frustration of a five-week absence.

After the brief and awkward romantic encounter was over and the pizza was delivered, we sat and munched on Italian delight, discussing our Middle-American quandary.

Her situation was simple. Obviously, if she had wanted to return to a relationship and marriage, she would probably have found a way to fly back to Ohio to be with me.

She had naturally been wooed from such a committment by the fact that her parents had moved to a bungalow next to the ocean in Guaymas Sonora, Mexico, thirty paces from walking on the beach, and they had thoroughly excited her about being a freshman at the University of Arizona.

Somewhere in the midst of her enthusiasm, she had left two realities out of her thinking: the baby that continued to grow within her loins, and me, who had been the visitor to the same.

Even though the conversation I had with this girlfriend was very tender, fruitful and never escalated to anger, by the end of the evening she candidly shared that she would not return with me. There was just too much to leave behind.

I placed her in a taxi (which she had to pay for) and she was off and away.

As far as I knew, that was the end of it.

I didn’t sleep much that night. Mine was not merely the turmoil of a forsaken lover, but also the annoying prospect of trying to figure out how I was going to get a fifty dollar ticket to return to Columbus, Ohio, and what I was going to do when I arrived, since I had missed the opportunity to sign up for college in the fall.

It was the shortest night of my life because my brain moved at hyper-speed, and before I knew, it was six o’clock in the morning, and I was in desperate need for a plan to get from my motel room, to the airport, and back to my normal surroundings.

Yet I decided to call her one last time.

• Was it to say good-bye?
• Was it to ask her if she might reconsider?

Well, I got very little out of my mouth during the phone conversation before she explained that her new girlfriends at the dormitory had been talking to her all night about her decision. One of the young ladies had developed a tremendous dislike for my girlfriend’s father because of how rude he was when he called the dorm, looking for his errant daughter.

These young ladies thought she was a fool for walking away from love to merely study such encounters in books at the university.

So my girlfriend changed her mind.

She said she had packed her bag, would hop a taxi, and be there in less than an hour. She actually arrived. I was a little surprised, considering her history of missing appointments.

When she arrived, she showed me a checkbook her father had given her for college, with a balance of $750.

My dear God, I had never seen $750. We were starting off our journey wealthy.

With that money we were able to purchase our standby tickets and enjoy a swordfish dinner at a fancy restaurant during our Chicago lay-over. We landed in Columbus feeling like Romeo and Juliet, without being dead.

We were certainly not ready for what happened next…

The producers of jonathots would humbly request a yearly subscription donation of $10 for this wonderful, inspirational opportunity

click above for information on 567!