Author: Allen Forte

When I was younger, I wanted to be the best person that I could be at anything I wanted to do.  I was an “A” student in school, so I wanted to be an “A” performer in life and work.  But life and work turned out to be a lot harder than schoolwork.  I wasn’t an “A” performer, and I couldn’t understand why.

I thought I could just outsmart whatever was before me.  But smarts, intelligence, and wits didn’t work in life like they did in schools.  One day, out of frustration with how things were going for me in my job and in my life, I asked myself, “Why am I not able change the things I want to change in life?”

This is what came to me at that moment.  I was making life a lot harder than it needed to be.  I had to give up on being the person I was so that I could be the person I needed to be.  Nothing will change for us until our minds change something about us.

In Romans 12:2 scripture tells us of this, “And do not conform to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may be prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”  This helped me to see that God wanted me to change. He didn’t just want me to act like I was different. He wanted me to change to something different.

I don’t believe I’m the only one like this.  If you want things to be better around you today, the quickest and surest way to do that is to change something in yourself today.  We must decide to change our minds about who we are and who we ought to be.  We must go through a mental transformation of sorts.  Trying to do better by being the same person won’t work.  Trying to serve the Lord by being the same person we were before knowing Him doesn’t work either.

I believe the Lord wants to do some things that would make us something amazing in our love for Him and for others, but we keep Him from doing that because we want to do the things we want just as we are.  I believe everyone at some point must go through an encounter like the one I had with myself.

Just like our shadow will follow us around all day, our lives are destined to follow our thinking around.  No one can consistently do more than his or her mindset permits.  That is why God asks us to be transformed by renewing our minds.  The old you will continue to do the old stuff the old you has always done.  The old you will continue to do the old things the old you wants to do.

We cannot serve the Lord with the minds we use daily to serve our earthly needs.  I realized change is change, and that is different from doing something different.  We can wear different clothes each day, but we will still be the same old person.  We can wear different shoes, but the same old person will walk in the same old ways.  We can take a different job, but the same old person will go to work in the same old way.  Your mind as it is will keep you conformed to the world as it is.  An untransformed mind is not your friend.

Nothing changes until our minds changes us. When you allow your mind to change your attitude about you, you will discover the most valuable thing that you can have in life.  It is the thing most responsible for helping us live out who we are and who we should be.  You will discover the person God wants you to be.  You will discover who you are.  That should be the reason for how you live and what you do each day.

All of us have the need to change our minds about ourselves.  Your mind is not always your friend.  Your old mind will keep telling the old you to do the same things when it should be telling you to be transformed to something new so that you can do new things in a new way.

Nothing can change until your mind changes what it thinks about you.

Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

There is a story in the bible of a time when Abraham is called to go to a nearby mountain and offer his young son, Isaac, as a sacrifice to God.  Abraham and Isaac arrive at the mountain.  Isaac is unaware of what is supposed to happen that day.  He says to his father, look, we have the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?  Isaac had seen his dad do this enough to know that an offering was not complete without a lamb.  Abraham tells Isaac that God would take care of providing the lamb this time.  You can read this account in Genesis 22:7-10.

Many years later, Jesus and His disciples were in a boat crossing over a lake.  The winds were very strong that day.  In Luke 8:23-25 scripture says, “As they sailed, He fell asleep.  A windstorm came down on the lake and they were filing with water, and they were in danger.”  They went to Jesus and woke Him, saying they were perishing!  After calming the wind Jesus said to them, “Where is your faith?”

That was then.  Today, God does not ask us to offer a burnt offering anymore.  Jesus did that for us once and for all.  He is our burnt offering, given to take away the sins of our lives.  While He took away our sins, He did not take away our challenges.  When we are challenged to get across the lake with strong winds against us, there are some things we must bring and there are some things God will provide to help us get through our challenges.

Examine your life carefully and learn how you got to where you are as you travel to where you are going.

If disobedience got you to a situation, obedience will be needed to get you out of that situation.  Turn to God in obedience, and He will calm the things of disobedience around you.

If fear got you into a situation, belief in God will be needed to get you out of that situation.  Turn to God in belief, and He will set afire your fear to burn it.

If greed got you into a situation, temperance will be needed to get you out of that situation.  Turn to God in temperance, and He will set afire your greed.

If hate got you into a situation, love will be needed to get you out of that situation.  Turn to God in love, and He will set afire your hate.

And then there are some things that come upon us for no apparent cause.  For instance, if persecution comes upon you, then faith and belief in God will be needed to get you through.  Turn to God in faith and belief, and He will carry you through your persecution.  He will carry you through your difficult marriage.  He will carry you through your sickness.  He will carry you through a difficult relationship at work.  When you turn to Him, He will turn to you.

All of this is easier done when we approach life the way Abraham and Isaac did.  We ought to wake up every day committed to going up that nearby mountain to offer up ourselves and all our weaknesses as a burnt offering to God.  Along the way, we will take all the wood and all the fire that we need.  And when we arrive, we should be ready to offer ourselves to be the lamb for our offering.  But we should not despair because God will provide His own Lamb for our offering.

So, let’s wake up today and set our hearts on the mountain of challenges that may be in our lives.  Let’s grab those challenges, some obedience, and some belief, and as much faith as we can muster.  Then let’s set off to offer all this to the Lord.  It may be a difficult journey.  The winds may be against us at times, but He will be with us to rebuke the things that would hinder us.  We need but to keep pressing to get to the mountain.

If you are going to do an offering, you want the Lord to say, look he brought the wood for his challenges, and he brought the fire of his faith to burn his challenges, but he has no lamb for the offering.   So, I will provide him Deliverance as his lamb, so his offering is complete.  

Live a Delivered Life.  Love You.

Recently, I was listening to an old song.  It was saying I’m just a nobody trying to tell everybody about somebody who can save anybody.  I love the song.  It is talking about Jesus.  But the more I listened to it, the more I realized that Jesus is somebody who can take anybody who believes they are a nobody, and He can make them somebody special to Him.  We are never just a nobody to Him.

There are numerous examples in The Word of Jesus making somebody out of someone who was a nobody to others.  One such example in found in John, 4:4-30.  This is the account of Jesus meeting a woman of Samaria at a well.  The woman had gone out that day to draw water, and she met Jesus there at the well.  Jesus had a conversation with the woman, a conversation that custom said He should not have had.  You see, Jews didn’t have dealings with the people of Samaria, especially an unmarried woman of Samaria.  She was a nobody to the Jews and to her own people of Samaria.

But a nobody to us is a pearl in the making to Jesus.  He has a way of taking a nobody and making somebody out of them, then using them to spread the Word about who He is and how He can save anybody.  Toward the end of their conversation, John 4:28-29 says, “The woman left her water pot, went her way into the city, and said to the men, ‘Come see a Man Who told me all the things I ever did.  Could this be the Christ?’  Then they went out of the city and came to Him.”

Jesus took a nobody and made somebody of her.  She left her waterpot on the spot and went home a different person.  She was now somebody.  Imagine her saying to the people, “Look at me!  He told me more about me than you all know of me.  Could He be Christ, the savior of the world?”  Later the scripture says many of the people of Samaria believed Jesus that day and were saved because of the word of the woman who was a nobody who Jesus made somebody He could use to save anybody.

This story is not just about a chance encounter with a nobody who became a somebody.  The place where Jesus and the woman met—the well—was Jacob’s well from many generations before.  This was the place where Jacob returned to his homeland after having lived away for many years.  When he returned, he bought this plot of land and dug the well that he passed on to his son Joseph.  This is important because Jacob had left his land over 20 years earlier as a nobody and he returned a somebody, a child of the covenant of God.  Joseph was imprisoned in Egypt as a nobody, but he was released and made a somebody, second to Pharoah in command in all of Egypt.

Jesus had plans for Jacob and Joseph many years before they were born.  He has plans for you and me too.  So now, it is high time for you and me to step out of being nobody of importance to anybody and into becoming somebody special to the Lord.  We’ve got to come back home from wondering around for many years.  We’ve got to endure times where we may feel like we are in prison.  We must wait patiently until the day we go to the well for water because we thirst to be saved from the things that beset us daily.

So, let’s do like this woman did.  Let’s go to the well, draw some water, and look for the opportunity to have a life transforming conversation with the Lord.  Let’s leave our waterpots full of stuff right there and return to live a life of somebody who Jesus saved from being a nobody who now can tell anybody of how great the Lord is to everybody who is willing to come to Jesus because they listened to somebody who had been transformed by the Love of Christ Jesus.  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.   

I’d like to make this the shortest message I’ve ever done, because it is simple and filled with common sense.  I could also make it a book with an infinite number of pages because it is simple, filled with common sense, but we generally don’t care about common sense when it doesn’t suit our sense.

The Bible tells a story about King David.  Before he was made king, David was anointed by God as a young boy to be His king.  The scripture says the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward until his death.  After this anointing, David killed the giant Goliath.  Goliath was the Philistine champion warrior who blasphemed God.  David took care of that.  You can read this account in 1 Samuel 16 and 17.

Goliath had a behavior problem.  Some people may have feared his size, but they did not respect his behaviors or his attitude.  He got what he had coming to him because of his behavior and attitude.

Later the king of the Israelites, Saul, was angry and jealous that David had been anointed to be the next king, even before Saul was dead, preventing Saul’s own sons from becoming king.  Saul attempted to kill David.  Saul had a bad attitude and some behavior problems.

Imagine his lack of common sense.  He had seen firsthand how David killed Goliath; why then would Saul think he could kill David.  That’s the problem with bad attitudes and bad behaviors; they don’t permit you to use the sense common obvious to everyone around you.  You do crazy stuff.  You are not respected for your behaviors.  If you don’t care about your behaviors, and others will not respect you because they do not care for your behaviors.

Scripture says this about Saul and David in 1 Samuel 18:12-15.  “Now Saul was afraid of David, because the Lord was with David, but had departed from Saul…. And David behaved wisely in all his ways, and the Lord was with him.” When Saul saw that David behaved wisely, he was afraid of David.  Now this word afraid is more like respectful of him.

How is it then that David was able to behave in ways that Saul would respect while Saul was actually trying to kill David because he was jealous of him?  Well, David lived in ways that Saul and people like you and me find it difficult to live because we can’t get past living for ourselves.

David had this testimony from the Lord.  He was anointed King of Israel because God Himself said that He had found David to be a man after His own heart.  Here are five ways David showed himself to be a man’s after God’s own heart:

• David allowed God to shape his desires; David’s wants were God’s wants.
• David allowed God to save his life.  In other words, David lived a Delivered Life.  God uses the lives He delivers.
• David allowed God to challenge his will.  David submitted his will to the will of God.  God changes the wills of those who submit their wills to Him.
• David allowed God to search his heart.  David wanted God to know him as much as David wanted to know God.
• David allowed God to Love him.  David didn’t just go around talking about how God loved him.  David was transformed, strengthened, and favored by the Love of God to do amazing things.

From these things, David was able to form an attitude that others respected because God was in all the things David was in.  Even in his failures, which were many, David had the sense to invite God to be in everything he was in.  People saw this about David and they respected David’s behaviors because of it.

Its easy for us to live like Saul.  All we have to do is live like we are our own king.  If you don’t care about how people think about how you behave, you are probably on that path Saul took.  If you don’t care about what you think about your own behavior, you are probably lost in your own ways.  Learn to live and behave like something great has a hold of you, and something great will happen around you.  Learn to live with respected behavior.  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

Scripture tells of a time that Jesus spoke to a crowd about the difference between the life they were living and the life God wanted them to live.  But I want to talk about what happened after Jesus ended this talk.  According to Matthew 7:28-29, “And so it was, when Jesus had ended these sayings, that the people were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.” 

Authority?  What are they talking about?  And Scribes, why didn’t they have this authority?

Authority gives someone the right to enforce a law, rule, or custom.  Authority gives you the right to make decisions, to command compliance, or to enforce corrections when needed.  Authority is simple.  It justifies and makes legitimate the actions you take with someone who may be in violation of an authority.  The authority to do means there must be an authority that was violated.  That is not the type of authority the people were referring to here with Jesus.

And the Scribes.  Who were they?  Scribes were common people who had knowledge of the law and customs.  They could draft legal documents like contracts for marriage, divorce, loans, inheritance, mortgages, the sale of land, and things like that.  But they were not the law themselves.  They were trained to know a lot about many things.  They were authorities in knowing about things, but they had no authority to enforce compliance with anything.  They were teachers teaching about things they had learned.

So then, just how is Jesus different from both the law and how the law is taught?  In Mark 3:4, Jesus asked the Pharisees, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?”  The Pharisees didn’t answer Him because to respond would have weakened the power they enjoyed by being the authority over enforcing compliance with the Sabbath law.  My sense tells me its never lawful to do evil, not on Sabbath or on any other day.  And it is never lawful to kill anyone, not on Sabbath or on any other day.

Jesus is saying, we don’t need to have authority to do what is right or to be what He calls us to be.

Back then as now, scribes needed the backing of authority to teach about the things they knew.  But Jesus came to personify the things that the scribes taught about.  He needed no authority to be Jesus.  He needed no authority to do good because He is good.  He needed no authority to work on Sabbath because He is the Sabbath.  And like that, we need no authority to Be the persons God calls us to be.  We don’t need authority to love someone; we can just be love.  We don’t need authority to forgive someone; we can just be forgiving.  

We don’t need authority to be kind, patient, longsuffering, good, or anything that God wants us to Be.  We need only to allow Him to make us these things.  When you do this, you will be able to stop living a life that needs the authority of someone else to make the things you do be the right things.  A life with Christ is not supposed to be a life where an unchanged you has learned about the things of God. 

The things of God should transform your life from one of doing to one of being.  Then you will go from having to do things under the authority of something or someone to living life having God’s authority to Be the person He wants you to be.  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

It’s New Year’s Eve 2021.  Many of us will stay up late so we can see the new year, 2022 arrive.  Many of us will find a celebration or a party or some other type of event to attend to celebrate the new year.  Many of us will have more memories about what we did to bring in the new year than what we did to make a difference in 2021.

I’m not sure God gets excited about fireworks and parties and socializing to bring in the new year. So, I want to offer you three ways believers can do to bring in the new year so that God would want to join in your celebration.

Lamentations 3:22-23 says, “Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not.  They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.”  The Lord’s Love is steadfast towards us, so much so that it covers us and keeps us throughout the year.  We can see another day because His Love carries us, and we can see another day because His mercies cover our failings.  And His Love and His mercies toward us are never old; they are new each day because we bring new trials upon ourselves each day.

Given the Love and Mercies and His faithfulness towards us, let’s bring the new year by:

Praising Him.  Psalm 150-6: “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.”  Let your praise of the Lord be the fireworks of your life given to Him!  Wouldn’t that be great?

Waiting for Him.  Lamentations 3:25: “The Lord is good to those who wait for Him.”  If you have lived the whole year ahead of the Lord, now would be a great time to close out the year waiting for Him.  Don’t just wait on Him.  He may not be heading in the direction you are going.  Instead, wait for Him.  He will bring new direction for you.

Hoping quietly in Him.  Lamentations 3:26: “It is good that one should hope and wait quietly.”  Just as we will wait in anticipation of new year’s fireworks that will come and go in moments, do something better.  He finds it good that we would hope in Him for our enjoyment and all else.  Let’s find time in the year to hope in the Joy of the Lord.

So, if you are waiting up till midnight to see the old year pass and the new year come, consider praising Him for filling your life with His Love and with His mercies.  Wait for Him to show you the way you should go for 2022.  And hope in Him for goodness to be your shadow in 2022 and for all the days of your life.

In that second between the end of 2021 and the entry of 2022, if you are up celebrating, celebrate that He is our savior.  Its just a second in your life.  You won’t miss much of the passing of the old year or the entry of the new year.  But you will end the old and start the new with Him at the center of your heart.  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

I did not intend to do a message today, but obviously I intended wrong.  I will be short.  It’s the day after Christmas 2021.  

Yesterday, Christmas Day 2021, I was outside in my yard talking with a neighbor for a few moments.  He said Christmas was a happy day for him, but he was already sad because tomorrow—now that is today—would come, and all the struggle and hurt and pain of life would return.

I was hurt a bit by his vision of Christmas, and more by how he saw life in the days after Christmas.  I said to him, “If Christmas is any joy to you at all, then all the days thereafter should be to you even greater joy.”

Why is that?  Because the birth of Christ was Only the Beginning of the life of a resurrected Christ that lives now in each of us.  What does that mean for us?

In Luke 2:20, the bible tells us the shepherds who were told of Jesus’s birth returned happy after seeing Him.  Scripture says it this way, “Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God, for all the things that they had heard and seen, just as it was told to them.”

You cannot really be happy and fulfilled unless you are full of praise and adoration for the Lord.

Today is the day after Christmas, and I am glad for our sakes because today marks the beginning of the rest of our lives that are now filled with the Life of Christ, who is a gift that will never grow old.  He is a toy that will be new every time we touch it.  He will be like a Christmas dinner and never like leftovers.  He will be an old friend but new every day.  He will be the same old job that feels like a new job each week.

So, don’t look at today and think Christmas is passed now for another year.  The day itself is gone, but it is only the beginning of the rest of the days of what Christmas means to us.

God deposited praise and glory into your life yesterday.  Let it work in your life so you can live each day now full of joy and happiness and peace with the things that are around you.

It’s only the beginning.

Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

In Luke 1:1-38 scripture gives the account of the coming birth of Jesus.  What had been spoken of by prophesy many years before was about to come to be.  How could that be?

In verse 12, an angel of the Lord appeared to Zacharias, a priest.  The angel told him that his wife Elizabeth would bear a son, and that he would call him John.  This would be John the Baptist as we know him.  Zacharias and his wife were very old, so Zacharias said to the angel, “How can this be? I am an old man, and my wife, Elizabeth is well advanced in years”?  In short, he said, “How Can This Be?  It is past possible for Elizabeth and Me to bring forth a child.  We are too old.”

Well, Elizabeth was indeed pregnant.  And she did have the baby John, nine months after the angel’s visit with Zacharias.  Now, God’s plan for John to go before Jesus and proclaim His name was in motion.

A short time after this, the angel Gabriel goes to Mary. In verses 30-31, he tells her she is going to have a baby, and hers will be the son of God.  At the time, Mary is still a virgin and unmarried, so she doesn’t understand how two humans are going to be parents to the Son of God.  So, she said to Gabriel, “How Can It Be?  I am not married, and I am still a virgin.”  Mary was saying it is not past possible for me to bare a child, but she still asked, “How can it be, given I’m not married yet and I’m still a virgin.”

An angel appeared a third time in the story of Jesus’s birth.  This angel goes to Joseph, Mary’s future husband, and tells him that Mary is indeed pregnant with the Son of God and that Joseph should go ahead and take her as his wife.  Joseph did not understand how but he understood what was happening.  So, he took Mary as his wife.  But, if he is anything like the others, he probably said to himself, “How can this be?”  Joseph probably thought, not only is it possible it is probable.

• Zacharias was greeted with some amazing news from God.  He responded in doubt, “How can this be?”

• Mary was greeted with some amazing news from God.  She responded in awe of God, “How can this be?”

• Joseph was greeted with some amazing news from God.  He responded in obedience.  He did as he was told to do, but asked, “How can this be?”

We are in the time of year when we observe the day of Christ’s birth, Christmas.  So, I have a few questions for us:

• How can it be that doubt in what God says to us cannot stop what God wants to work in us?

• How can it be that questioning what doesn’t seem possible yet does not stop God from doing what is not possible yet?

• How can it be that obedience, even when we may not understand, does not hinder God’s plans when He wants to use us?

Well, I don’t know exactly.  But this I do know.  How can it be that Jesus would be with God; and then He would be born of a virgin; and then He would become flesh and live among us; and He would live and die and be raised again from death for our salvation.  How can it be?

Well, this is how.  Christmas marks the day Jesus the baby, yet a savior, was born.  How can it be that all the things we doubt, all the things we question, all the things we cannot believe possible, all the things we do not understand so we do not obey, will never stop Him from loving us?

I didn’t have an angel visit me today to give me an answer, but this is what I feel.  How can these things be possible and how can many more things of God will be possible?  Well, it’s because Christmas is the day God made it possible to be given the gifts of you and me and all others who would come to know and love Him.  To God, Christ’s birth is the day God Himself was given the most treasured gift He could ever have: the opportunity to love you and to have your life with Him in eternity.  How can that be?  I don’t know, but I’m glad it is.  And I’m glad God is glad to have this day for Himself.  Let’s make this a Merry Christmas for the Lord and give Him all our hearts.  Merry Christmas Lord.  Live a Delivered life.  Love you.

Joshua and the Israelites are about to cross the Jordan river into the Promised Land, but the city of Jericho stands in their way on the opposite bank of the river.  Scripture records an encounter Joshua had at this moment in history.  

And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, a Man stood opposite him with His sword drawn in His hand.  And Joshua went to Him and said to Him, “Are You for us or for our adversaries?”  

Joshua 5:13

I guess we should think this was a natural thing to do.  Joshua was about to take God’s people across the Jordan and into the land promised to them, so he wanted to know if this Man with a sword drawn was going to stand with or against them.

The Man’s response was interesting.  It is one we should consider.  He said to Joshua, “No, but as Commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.” 

 Joshua had queried the Man the way many of us would have.  He asked two questions.  Are you for us?  Or are you against us?  The Man answered both questions with one word: “No.”  No, I am not for you, and no, I’m not against you.  Joshua asked the wrong questions.  The question he should have asked is, “Who are you?”

Sometimes we make assumptions about the people and things in our lives.  We ask if they are here for this thing or that thing when we should be asking, “Who are you?”  And often we ask questions when we probably should start by saying, “This is who I am.”  This Man’s response to Joshua almost demanded that Joshua tell Him who he was.  In a way this Man was saying to Joshua, now that you know who I am, tell Me, where do you stand?  Are you for Me or against Me?  Joshua had things all backwards.  Are you on My side or are you for My adversaries?

So, the questions for you and me now are these.  Where do we stand?  On whose side are we?  When we are on the Lord’s side, we will learn to wait for Him to lead the way for us.  The Israelites walked around Jericho for seven days; when we are on the Lord’s side, we will learn to walk in the places He tells us.  The Israelites didn’t talk while they walked around Jericho until the end of the last day; when we are on the Lord’s side, we will learn to walk around our adversaries while we keep our mouths shut.  Often, we talk more than we should, and often, we walk less than we should.

The people of Jericho saw the Israelites walk around their city daily for that week.  They had time to realize these were God’s people even though the people said nothing.  They had time to see God’s ways by observing the ways of God’s people.  Perhaps some had time to change their ways because they saw the ways of the Israelites.  Your quiet walk can be a powerful example.  When we are on the Lord’s side, people will see our ways, and that more than anything will be the reason they may change their ways.  

So, ask yourself today, where do I stand?  If it is for the Lord, then we might learn from Joshua and the people.  Let’s learn to walk quietly before our adversaries.  This way we won’t confuse them with our walk that doesn’t match our talk.  Stand up and walk quietly if you are on the Lord’s side.  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

In a few days, our family will attend the wedding of our third son and his beautiful young bride-to-be.  As I prayed about their wedding and prepared some thoughts for the occasion, I was reminded of the account of a wedding in scripture.

In John 2:1-12 scripture speaks to us about a wedding that Jesus attended.  The first two verses say this to us, “On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.  Now both Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding.”  It says the host ran out of wine before the event was over, so Jesus’ mom went to Him and told Him they had run out of wine.  Jesus responded by telling the servants to fill six stone water pots with water.  Then He told them to draw some of the water from one of the pots and give it to the host of the wedding feast.  When they did, the host realized it was wine, some of the best wine he had ever tasted.

Verse 11 says to us, “This was the beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and He manifested His glory and His disciples believed in Him.”  The “beginning of signs,” it says.  Signs may be thought of as miracles.  Miracles may be thought of as things that happen that cannot be explained, yet they are as real as anything we can see or taste or feel.  Miracles are beyond explanation, but they cannot be denied for their reality.

As I prayed for my son and his soon-to-be wife, I thought of this scripture, and I thought how I wanted the young couple to start their lives just as miraculously.  You see, we don’t know much about the people who got married that day, but we do know this. They were wise enough to invite Jesus to their wedding.  But why?  I’m sure they didn’t do it because they anticipated they would run out of wine.  Why, then, was Jesus the son of God invited to their wedding?

I don’t know why.  But I can see another miracle happened because they had the sense to invite Jesus to be there.  I believe someone knew this would simply be an event about a wedding if Jesus were not present.  But with Him present, it would be an event about a marriage.  You see, the wedding is what we get happy and excited about, but the marriage is what Jesus gets happy about.  A wedding is what brings two people together, but Jesus is not in the business of weddings.  Perhaps that is why He told His mother His time had not come yet.  Jesus is in the business of creating marriages at weddings.  He wants to come to weddings so He can put two lives together with Him in the middle, creating a marriage of three people to live together as one.  He manifests His glory in this way.

Two people becoming one person with Christ in the middle.  That is want I can see from this event.  That is what we want for our children as we celebrate their wedding.   I can see that perhaps Jesus was not at the wedding in Cana of Galilee to perform a miracle with water.  Maybe He was there to help people understand that the joy of a wedding must carry into the life of a marriage with two people in Him together.  Could it be that He was there because He wanted us to be ready for the marriage that needed to come?

It was no coincidence that Jesus was invited to the wedding.  I believe the people knew they needed Him to turn a wedding into a marriage.  First with Him and then between them.  You see, a wedding focuses on the joy of two people coming together with their prospects of building lives together.  But a marriage is about the wonders of being the bride of someone else.  A marriage is learning how to live in a loving and selfless way so that you make the life of someone else better than it could have been without you.  When we invite Jesus into our lives in this way, we ask Him to help us become one in Him so that we can help to magnify the glory of who He is to all the people we know and love.

The wedding is simply an event that many will forget in time, but a marriage is a life that will be lived with Jesus in the middle for all life that remains.  Jesus is always looking for a bride to share life with and to live with and He is always ready to enter into a marriage with us when we are ready to live with Him as His bride.  So, He is always happy to be invited to our weddings.

You see, Jesus knew a wedding without Him would lead to an empty marriage.  And a marriage that is empty of the Lord is like:

• Baking a cake without adding sugar;
• Having an apartment building without any tenants;
• Having schools without any students;
• Hospitals without patients;
• Rivers with no water;
• Church with no spirit.

So, as we are ready to get married, let’s make sure we invite to our weddings the One who can make the marriage complete for now and ever after.  I have seen the love for the Lord in our son and in his soon-to-be wife.  I want to make certain that the Lord is invited to their wedding to be a part of the beginning of their lives together.  I want the miracle of the marriage for them, just like the one Jesus performed in Cana of Galilee.

Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.