I am still Alive!

I am still alive....even though I have not posted in over a month. 2004 was a great year for Melissa and I; a new home, a new job, a new church in our house, several new and fresh relationships with other believers. GOD IS SO GOOD!!
I just wanted to ramble a bit about what God seems to be teaching me lately and I don't have much time these days with family, community, work, school, coaching, and other things that I can't even think of right now. So here goes.............

It seems that the Lord is opening up my eyes to the fact of relationship; how relationship is the key to understanding His plan for me.....as a matter of fact, His plan for me is all about THE RELATIONSHIP with Him and how I live out that relationship with others that are placed in my path. In James, I read this morning that "...the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective." (James 5:16) I do not consider myself to be all that righteous, yet God answers my prayers because of the righteousness of Christ in me.....therefore even while I am yet a "sinner"--because of life of Christ in me....I am righteous in Father's sight! Oh how He must love me. I think if we could ever grasp just how much God loves us, we would never get over it!
Most teaching that I have heard in church says that the more righteous I live, the closer my relationship with God. I disagree! In fact, it is just the opposite. The closer I am in relationship with God, the more righteous I live......yet I am completely unaware of my own righteousness because I am too overwhelmed with His righteousness.
You see it is all about focus......who is the focus on if I am living a wonderfully righteous life? Well the answer depends much more on your attitude than your actions. You can do the right thing the wrong way. I find that the more we try to hogg the glory that rightly belongs to God, the more off track we get. We still struggle with spiritual role reversal....we try to do God's job and try to make Him do our job....and it just doesn't work.
Well, if I can learn the lessons that God is trying to teach me during this year, I am sure that my blog postings will be better and more helpful to you...the two people who actually read this thing.
I have to go now! I hope it has been worth your time in reading this...please email me and let me know....by leaving a post or emailing directly to keith@connectionpoint.org.
Catch you next time!