Day 22 - A lot has changed in 2 years

Day 22 – Change over past 2 years

I have taken a Blog Challenge to blog daily for 30 days mostly about myself so that you and others can get to know me a bit better. Tell a friend about www.jacobfields.org this month, or like and interact with me on my Facebook ministry page at Facebook.com/Jacobwfields

There has been quite a bit of significant change in my life over the past two years and it has been an amazing ride. Here is a very simple explanation of all that has changed.

I worked at Preston Hollow UMC

I went to Russia for the first time.

While at Preston Hollow the Senior Pastor underwent quadruple bypass surgery so I got to fill in for him in the pulpit for 4 weeks, make hospital visits, and handle administrative responsibilities.

My wife and I got pregnant, but after 6 ½ weeks the baby’s heart stopped beating.

My wife and I got pregnant again.

My car got broken into while I was on a mission trip and my golf clubs were stolen.

I accepted the youth ministry position at Lake Cities UMC

I took a second job waiting tables to make up for a lower salary

My wife got her Physical Therapist Assistant License

My wife began working at Sandy Lake Rehab

We bought our first house

I officially declared as a candidate for ministry

I stopped working the second job.

We welcomed to this world a wonderful baby boy on January 3^rd George Wesley Fields

I became a Certified Candidate for ministry as an Elder in The United Methodist Church

We went to Disney World for the first time.

We got a new car

I applied to Perkins for Seminary, was accepted and have registered for classes.

I got my own website where you are now reading this J

I feel like I am leaving quite a bit of really cool stuff out even in a list this full. I trust that God will continue to shape my life in really great ways.

As Always thanks for your time and giving this a read. If you enjoyed it share it with friends, you can do so easily with one of the buttons below. I pray that you will embrace life in the Love and Grace offered to you through Jesus Christ, and that you will always remember Jeremiah 29:11.  – For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, Plans to Proper You and not for harm, Plans with Hope for the Future.

Holy Week - Good Friday

This week is a very special week. It is the most important week on the entire Christian calendar and within this week we remember the events that changed our world forever. I always try to do something extra special this week of the year, and this year I have chosen to journey with you through a book by Adam Hamilton. 24 Hours that Changed the World is a great book with only 7 chapters. So Each Day - Monday to Easter Sunday - I will review a chapter from the book. I very much recommend that you click the link here and overnight yourself a copy so that you can join in the discussions of each chapter in the comments below.

Chapter 5 - The Torture and Humiliation of the King

This is a difficult subject for me: flogging, beating, taunting. Of all the people in the entire world in all of history, it would be the easiest for us to point the finger at those people in that instant and say that is a sin: hitting Jesus with a whip, tearing his flesh over and over again. I am reminded of the movie Passion of Christ the scene from the movie that disturbed me the most was the flogging, it just kept going. When you got to the point of thinking that is enough it just kept going. Jesus never asked them to stop, he remained silent. In the moments of my sin is Christ there? is he standing silently waiting for me to realize how much he loves me? Does Jesus require or even ask us to stop or is his priority that we understand the lengths that he would go to show how much he loves us even in that moment. You see when I sin and realize that what I am doing is a sin and I continue in selfishness anyways, I am the one holding the whip. When it gets to the point where my actions have done so much damage the truth is that more often than not even I keep going. Jesus asks those who have received healing to "go and sin no more" yet to those who are still entrenched in their sin, like Zacheus the tax collector and like all those who inflict pain on him in the last hours of his life he never calls them to repent. Zacheus brought Jesus home with him and was compelled so much by Christ’s love that he changed his life without being asked. The Soldiers responsible for the task of torturing were surely included in those whom Jesus prayed for on the Cross "Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do" and surely they are included among the witnesses of the thunder and ground shaking and the dead being raised to life that it describes happened that afternoon. Surely their lives were changed. So what is it about God's love that without condemning us for what we are doing leads us to change?

For me, this reinforces that me changing for the better is only in response to God's love for me and not that I have to change before God will love me. This is true for all of us. Maybe you have understood a different way from people of the church, insisting that you must change your ways for God to accept you; that my friend is not the case. God loves you exactly the way you are, but thankfully he loves us so much that he will never leave us unchanged after we truly experience His love. So my question for you today is: In what ways have you experienced the Love of God? And how has that changed your life?

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