What’s Your #hashtag?

One of the newest internet phenomenon’s is hash tagging and having an “@yournamehere” for your Twitter name or Facebook page. Hash tagging is when you use a pound sign (#) and then add a single or couple of words behind it. For example: #Cody’sblog. Hash tags are generally meant to imply some sort of other meaning or an action behind those words.

With my example that would mean more than likely that you are reading my blog. It is mostly a twitter social media act because of only having 140 characters or less to express yourself.

I understand it. But what happens when you have a word like #holiness? What about #grace&mercy? What about if someone hash tagged #Jesus?

Holiness constitutes a lifestyle based on His commandments and instructions that He left for us, a.k.a. The Bible.

Grace and mercy is what He has blessed us with and goes far beyond what I could ever put down in 140 characters or really even into words, and must be shown with my praise for Jesus on a daily basis.

And Jesus! Sometimes I just want to shout it because of the joy that He has given me. Sometimes His name makes me want to cry for hours because of what He has forgiven me. Just knowing that He saved me and I will get to meet him one glorious day puts a smile on my face that can’t be explained!

Not everything can be summed up in 140 characters or less. What this has taught me is that we live in such a condensed and quickened life that sometimes we can sell short what we stand/live for in order to not be offensive or cause problems. I stand on the solid rock of Jesus Christ and everything I do, I hope that He is in it.

Collosians 3:2- Set your affection on things above, not on things on the Earth.

I thought of this simply to ask you if there were to be a hash tag on your life right now… What would it be? #What’sYourHashTag?

@CodymSchuler #LIVESFORJESUS

Our lives are dominated by choices. Everywhere we go, everything we do, we have to “choose” something. As children we resented the fact that we didn’t get to choose. As adults we spend lots of time analyzing and eliminating choices. Some are simple, others are much more involved. But the fact remains; the choices we make really do make us. They will prove to be either a blessing or a curse. What’s more, it’s not just the peer pressure of the earthly audience, but our choices have heavenly (eternal) implications as well (…I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you..).

All that pressure is absolutely more than humanity can handle alone. The blessing for us is that our process of choice is simplified because it is contained within God’s choice of us. God’s choice of us is irrefutable: John 15:16 KJV Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you…1 Peter 2:9 KJ But ye are a chosen generation… He has Divinely chosen us as a “choice makers.” The great thing for us is that God never gives the opportunity of choice without the positive influence of His power. Vs. 19… that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; His law and judgment clarifies our options. While His mercy leads us and leans us toward the choice for a life with Him. As His grace guides us down uncharted paths.

Vs. 19…therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live. He not only pronounces the problem, He provides for us the correct answer. All that remains is for us to have the courage to make the right choice. Our choice is within His choice. He has set the table for our success, provided every needed resource, given grace sufficient for the journey. Now just CHOOSE LIFE! You’re not an isolated “choice maker” that has to figure all of it out by yourself. Our choice to love and live for Him is made simpler by His choice to love, live, and die us.

The prodigal son in Luke 15 is a guy that so many of us can relate to. He wanted it his way…right now. He never calculated the cost of his desires. The father allowed him to prematurely receive his inheritance, so the prodigal took all of that unearned blessing and hit the road – ready to “live large”. The son quickly squandered every dime of his inheritance. And wouldn’t you know it, a famine hit the land just about the same time that he ran out of money. He was forced to go to work for a stranger in a strange land. Slopping hogs was probably not at all how he envisioned this thing playing out back at Dad’s house when he demanded his portion. (sometimes we really do get what is coming to us.)

However, in verse 17, the story takes a turn toward a happy ending: “And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!” He had absolutely lost his way, but fortunately he hadn’t forgotten the way home. And in the following verses, the son returns home and with open arms and is received and restored by his father.

The Prodigal had lost everything except his sense of direction. In the middle of a rebellious season, at the lowest possible point, he came to himself. An internal GPS helped lead him back to the Father’s house. Trusting that no matter how badly he had blown it, there was mercy for him there.

Simon Peter didn’t know what to do either after his great failure, so he just used his sense of direction and went back to the place where Jesus first called him as a fisherman. He had lost his way, but he hadn’t forgotten the way home.

You or someone you know may be in the same self-induced situation that the Prodigal and Peter found themselves in. Perhaps the choices and decisions you have made have lead you to a place where you never imagined your life being. Like the Prodigal, maybe you think you have lost everything. But, there is one thing you haven’t lost; that is your sense of direction. Jesus said HIs sheep hear His voice and follow Him. I encourage you today to use your sense of direction and go back to the Father’s house. You may have lost your way, but I am guessing you haven’t forgotten your way home. Find an altar and submit yourself to God’s tender mercy again. He is ready to run to you, to receive you, and to restore your broken life!

God Bless You,
Pastor Cranor

As Apostolic Christians, we need to be cognizant of the “REVERSE ISOLATION” concept. We are called to minister to the hurting and the hopeless. My fear is not that I am going to catch their problems, their sin. Not that they are going to bring something harmful into my life, but the bigger concern is that I might introduce something into their weakened system that could do deeper damage. My words, my attitude, my spirit, must all be veiled with a surgical mask of humility and sensitivity. I don’t want a negative something from my mind or spirit to cause an already vulnerable soul to take a turn for the worse.

Think about it: The effort that is intended to do good, can do more harm than good if we haven’t humbled ourselves, prayed, fasted, marinated in His word. Jesus could confidently lay His hand on the leper in Matthew 8 without fear that disease would be transmitted in either direction. Because He was practicing REVERSE ISOLATION. His words, actions, and motives had already been anointed for this moment.

With the covering of Holy Ghost enveloping our lives, let’s minister to the helpless and the hopeless like never before. Let’s love them and lead them to Jesus Christ!