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Look For Stragglers

Truth be known, I’m a straggler, as I’m often looking at stuff or enjoying an in-depth conversation. I used to be concerned about being a leader & Stein ahead of everyone. 

And then I discovered the glories of being around stragglers – those people who might move at a different cadence, individuals who see life’s pace from a different perspective & others who are injured is n their body or soul who aren’t as nimble, agile or speedy. 

I think Jesus digs stragglers as well. I say this bc of a few people with whom Jesus connected deeply:  the Samaritan woman at the well, the demoniac who wandered the tombs & His reply to the woman caught in adultery. Let’s have compassion for stragglers & others who are different than ourselves 🙂

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hip, cool & popular

Jesus had some interesting ideas about popularity & fame – He was, of course, quite famous when He walked on the earth for lots of different reasons:

  • healing sick people,
  • making religious leaders foam at the mouth with anger,
  • saying things that caused people to pause & think,
  • raising dead people to life,
  • giving thousands of people free lunch

Jesus was famous for lots of reasons but His popularity was a different story.  Jesus knew that His popularity with the crowds was at best fickle & fleeting.  When I watch how Jesus behaved & what He talked about when He lived among us, it’s very clear to me that He lived His life on earth to be “popular” solely with His heavenly Father.  He lived to make His heavenly Father known & attractive.  For our lives today, let’s understand that we are always “popular” with our heavenly Father 🙂

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Advertising & Marketing

We are all very popular. Everyone wants to get our attention. But ultimately, what businesses want even more than our attention is our money & they go to elaborate efforts to engage us for this treasure.
But here’s God’s crazy advertising scheme: send His only son, “disguise” Him as a human, empower Him to express genuinely transformational love & then let Him be brutally murdered. To secure humanity’s attention, God raised His son from the dead – now that’s some premier marketing & advertising. But God’s ultimate goal isn’t your money but rather your heart for a deeply satisfying & fulfilling relationship with the Creator of the universe. Skip the marketing hype & surrender to real love 🙂

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you are always popular!

Remember in school when you wanted to be popular?  Did you ever do anything stupid to try & fit in?  Personally, I’d prefer to forget some of the dumb things I’ve done, in the attempt to be popular & accepted – those are some sketchy memories to say the least!!!

With that being said, here’s a really comforting thought:  you are always popular with God & you’ll never lose your popularity with God.  You are always on God’s “hit parade” and God is always eager to be with you – moreso, God loves it when you spend time with God.  You are continually acceptable to God through what Jesus has accomplished.  You’re POPULAR!!! 🙂

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chasing

I’ve been thinking lately about some things that I want – not cars, clothes or temporary stuff.  Sometimes I think we can get trapped in our desires for popularity, wealth & achievements.  If we aren’t careful, we can easily make this mistake:

  • popularity = importance
  • wealth = value
  • achievements = significance

Unfortunately, I think it’s easy to get focused on the wrong goals (popularity, wealth & achievements) and never really understand that we are already important, valuable & significant because of Jesus’ love for us.

You are valuable.  You are important.  You are significant.  All because Jesus loves you, full stop.

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