Tag: God

Commentary, Cross, Gospel, Life, Love, Religion; spirituality, Religious

Just Live

Wynema

We over theologize. It’s actually really simple. I think it is us who require proof, explanation and experience. We spend lots of time and money to understand. We travel, we read, we study. Maybe it’s an American thing and it’s a good thing, but it’s really not necessary.

What if you don’t have access to all the resources or education? What if you can’t read or maybe you live in a country without religious freedom?

I’ve seen people in dire straights, desperate for help, who simple tell God I can’t, I give it to you, and He takes it and loves them as they slowly begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel. People with no formal education and no means except for the simple ability to believe and they are transformed.

I’m convinced that it’s about relationship with a loving God who meets us where we are, we don’t have to find Him in an elaborate building or a well dressed speaker on a platform. Jesus made the way that simple. Do you believe?

We Americanized believers question our faith, our forgiveness, our walk, our church attendance, our clothing, when the heavenly standard was met in Christ, do you believe it? Then relax, have relationship and stop measuring God’s ability to love you by external measurements and open your eyes to see that He has been all along. Just live!

"It Is Finished", Cross, Gospel, Life, Love, Poetry

The Gift

Wynema

He said, I have something for you,

Will you have it?

You receive the gift

You open it to find

Your first breath in new life

Clear, pure, organic

It’s as if you died

Only to wake up to eternity

But you’re still grounded

Strength with an eternal quality

Swimming in rivers of love

You look the same, but it’s different

It’s new, it’s otherworldly

In this single gift is everything

Absolutely everything

All you can think to say is,

Oh my gosh, thank you!

He smiles and you know

You’ve only just begun.

Wynema Clark 12-18-2017

"It Is Finished", Commentary, Cross, Life, Ministry, Religion; spirituality, Religious

The Totality of the Cross

Wynema

When you know Jesus, as He is, and how complete His work actually was, and that His life is present within you, then confidence and security are natural. You do not fear science, you do not fear intellectual thought, you do not fear cultural change. Because your hope is in Christ, your security is in something that is eternal. Where there is security in Christ there is confidence and out of confidence is progress!

Do not mistake the term “know Christ” as being saved. You can be fully and completely saved and loved and headed to Heaven and not fully know what happened at the cross and the reality of his life within you. You can be a Christian and very, very insecure. That was me most of my life. My dad used to say that we start our Christian walk at the finish line. I thought I knew what he meant but it wasn’t till I was in my forties that I even began to understand it. In fact, I’m still getting a grasp of it today.

What I see as the central key to an inward grasping of the person and work of Christ, is the cross. It was the single moment in time when God took upon himself, the death of us all. He became for us the sin and took the wages of it, which was death, that we all were destined for. He fulfilled the requirements of a law that, within humanity, could not be fulfilled, and nailed it all to the cross. He died the death of all humanity. God poured out his love on this world by receiving the consequences of something we had not even been born into yet and He did it so completely that we never have to question its validity. We never have to question the scope of its power. He was raised because it was finished, he was raised because you were justified, He was raised because the job was done. We just simply have to believe it. And by believing, we enter into it. His history becomes ours.

When you believe it, the adventure truly begins. When you believe, you get it all. He took our old life and we get to live from His life. You actually begin the journey with everything you will ever need for life and Godliness. The process is understanding it. It is renewing our mind to the totality of it. It is exercising faith in the reality of it everyday. Putting our hope in it, our confidence in it and out of that is a security so relevant that rest in it, produces progress. Where else can progress be made from resting?

That life within you becomes your reference point in times of fear, that life within you becomes your mental stability in circumstances that are beyond your control. His work so complete and His life so present that greater is He that is within you than what is in this world. It’s not something we have to make true by our faith it is something that already is true so we just put our faith in it. It’s just that simple!

Wynema I Clark

"It Is Finished", Commentary, Ministry, Poetry

It Is Finished

Wynema

On this day darkness met light
Sin met righteousness
Life met death
A reconciliation of all things and all people into One
Not a sin forgotten
not a nationality left out
For God so loved the whole world
For God’s plan included the whole world
And into His Son would be placed all sin
In Him would be the final seperation
In Him would be all law exacted
In Him would justice meet love
In Him would the blood make its final payment
Darkness fell and the earth shook
The wages of sin were deposited into the bank of eternity
Making way for the gift of God to be withdrawn
Unto all and upon all them that believe
Days later Light broke through
Righteousness came forth
and eternal Life conquered death
What was without was placed within
What is now within is being seen
Out of death came Life eternal
and it’s exceedingly, abundantly above anything we could ask or think.
Heaven on earth, Heaven in earth
It is finished!

Wynema Clark 4/3/2015

Commentary

Perspective

Wynema

Each of us has our own world view, our own perspective.  This perspective is a result of the way that we were raised, the world view of our parents, events that have happened in our lives, and even pop culture.  It is this perspective that largely filters the way that we hear and see ourselves and our circumstances.  I think this is why you can have two hundred people sitting in a service with one speaker saying one thing and you will end up with at least a dozen different interpretations of what that speaker said.  Now, that isn’t always a bad thing.  I think God can use each different perspective to provide a fresh window in which to see the world, if we will listen to each other.  So our own perspective or world view isn’t necessarily a bad thing unless it is contrary to the “truth”.

For example, when I was married I was a size 8.  It didn’t take me long to kiss that size 8 goodbye and I remember the complete agony and embarrassment that I felt by growing to a size 12.  I felt so ugly and fat.  Years later after having two kids and getting up all the way to a size 16 I began the process of losing weight and when I reached a size 12 again I felt absolutely gorgeous, I mean I loved shopping and walked with my head up because I knew I was a knock out.  Now, what was different between the earlier size 12 and the later size 12?  The only difference was my “perspective”.   I am happy to say that I am now back into a size 8 at age 42 but the point is that, depending on what angle you are looking from, you will decide if something is a good or a bad thing.

A lot of conflict happens in relationships because we don’t recognize each others different perspectives.  A lot of the arguments that we have aren’t based on right and wrong they are simply based on each individuals perspective.  The Bible gives us a great tool to use so that we can operate and function in this world with a better grasp on each other and what is going on by taking a Heavenly perspective.

Colossians 3:2 tells us to set our mind on things above, not on the things that are on the earth.  In other words we can see things from a higher place.  Do you remember going to the playground as a child and looking up at the slide?  When I was little that slide looked huge and scary.  But when I grew up and returned to that playground that same slide didn’t look near as scary, in fact it looked fun.  That is what happens as you mature and begin to see things from a higher place.

I encourage each of us to recognize that we all have different perspectives, that we all come from a different world view but always strive toward a Heavenly view.  Philippians chapter 2 even goes so far as to tell us to let the same mind be in us that was in Christ Jesus.  What kind of perspective did he have?  He actually set aside his Heavenly perspective in order to be fully engulfed in ours and in doing that he brought us the opportunity to take on His mind and His way of seeing the world and people and circumstances.

What does that mean to you?

How are we to do that?

What will be the result if we do?

April 18, 2013Image

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Short Story

“Outside the Stained Glass and Nylons”

Wynema
English: Stained glass windows of Berne cathed...
English: Stained glass windows of Berne cathedral, Switzerland. Français : Vitraux de la cathédrale de Berne, Suisse. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It all started one ordinary Sunday afternoon. Everyone coming proudly out of church dressed in layers of pastels and nylons. I couldn’t help but laugh to myself at all the effort put into this uncomfortable image of piety.  And there he was this man that I adore and fear, this man I praise and doubt. It’s very hard to hear high and lofty words from the pulpit only to go home to see the humanity. I was always daddy’s little girl, and wanted desperately to please him but I came to the conclusion that as much as I would like to be perfect it simply could never happen. And I was ok with that, although he was convinced that I was settling, when I was only choosing to live and love. It was hard enough being a young woman without the added pressure of religion and unreasonable expectations breathing down my neck. I saw things so differently and in my heart I believed God gave me these eyes.

Do I dare to shake it up?  Do I dare break the mold and see if what I have been told can stand the ugliness or the beauty of the world?  I just can’t believe that God would be in nylons, I mean I choose to believe he would be on a Harley Davidson riding through the streets of New Orleans.

One day many years ago I chose to open my eyes and look outside of the clean white sheets of religion.  I decided that if the cross was the real deal then it would work in the real world.  I decided that I would raise my kids in freedom and love and with their eyes wide open to the real world.  As a result, today I have a 15 year old daughter who sports piercings and enjoys various other avenues of self expression and yet she is the one who classmates can trust with their deepest darkest secrets.  She is the one they go to when they are in trouble and yet she holds fast to her faith.  She loves them and isn’t afraid of them and I am so glad she tells me their stories.  I was raised to be protected from the world by going to church but she is being raised to know that she is the church going into the world and I am so proud of her!  Freedom is a beautiful thing!

I see things different because I have gone outside of the stained glass windows.  I have conversed with the drug addicts and held hands with the sons and daughters of poverty.  I have learned that if you close your borders to the outside you will never have the necessary compassion that is required to change what needs to be changed.  How can I have an opinion if I don’t have a relationship with those of other points of view, lifestyles, cultures and ideas.  But if fear is what motivates me then I will remain in nylons, pastels and behind those walls and God will still love me but others who need Him will not know His love!

All of us live, to some degree, as Preacher’s kids.  Maybe your’s isn’t of religion but perhaps of an ideology that you grew up with.  Don’t allow fear to stop you from seeing the world with fresh eyes.  God created us with minds so that we can think and He isn’t afraid of us using the tools He gave us.

Poetry

“Just To Think”

Wynema

Do you ever do anything, just to think?

Shut out the world and let your mind and spirit sync.

Do you ever take a walk in the cool of the day,

And stop to smell the aroma of a wild bouquet?

If you treasured the moment that’s here and now,

If you opened your mind to what your heart would allow,

You would see beauty in ordinary things,

Realize a peace that only God brings.

The anxiety the rush and the stresses of existence,

Would be but a memory way off in the distance.

Wynema Clark 4/6/2013

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