My goal is to challenge you–and myself–to embrace the goal of living with our eyes on eternity and not get distracted by the things of this world. Easy to say, much harder to do. But the first step is realizing that this is, in fact, our goal.
Be encouraged. It’s not about repenting a million times, gritting your teeth and trying harder again and again and again in your own effort. It’s about feeling His unconditional love for you which will revolutionize your desires. It’s about more of Jesus and less of me. For years I tried to have less of me so I could make room for more of Him. But, what I’ve found out, more of Him kindles my desire for still more of Him and results in less of me.
As lovers of Jesus our passion on the earth shouldn’t be to amass great wealth or material possessions; to gain status for ourselves, to always put our best foot forward while hiding our faults, foibles, problems and wounds or to be self-focused.
We are to be focused on eternity where our true life begins. The 75 years here are just the birthing canal that settles where we will spend eternity. Keeping this unseen focus in front of us and regularly pursuing it is challenging, especially in the western world where so many distractions compete for our attention. And as our attention goes, so goes our lives.
If we can catch a glimpse of God’s love for us, if we can understand that the way we live can position us to be rewarded on judgment day, if we understand that possessions, status, etc. are not satisfying in the long run and if we pray for God’s grace, we can learn to become more heavenly focused.
The apostle Paul tells us to set our heart and our minds on things above:
“Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory” (Col. 3:14).
I hope you’ll commit to go on this journey with me or at least to investigate it thoroughly.
Blessings,
Jackie
(Photo credit: Dale Gillard)
Jackie, will Angels of Humility come out as an audiobook for people who have trouble focusing enough to read? Thanks for letting me know…and for considering this idea which I think will touch many more lives!
Very interesting site and a very interesting person. So happy to have met you and look forward to sharing more.
Just completed Angels of Humility. I could not put it down! I related to both Sarah and Pastor Paul! Thank you for removing the veil between the spiritual world and earthly world. It was an amazing read!
I did not want to retire but it was not a choice. So I asked God what he wanted me to do since I was not pastoring in any way familiar to me. He told me to start praying for the contacts in my phone. Then I starting emailing, texting or messaging to let them know I was praying for them. The I found a site called 365 promises and I send a promise, a little encouragement and a prayer each week day. My prayer congregation is now over 230. Yet, your book showed me how much more I can do as an intercessors and alerted me to the presence of angels in my life.
This has changed my life and my ministry. Thank you
Just finished Designer Purse…more in tears than without tears. It was just what God wanted me to read today and I thank God for every thought and scripture in it. Thank you for a beautiful story! Keep writing and we’ll keep reading!
Quite a while ago I bought “Angels of Humility” and I really liked it so I gave it to my husband and he read it and said it was the best book he has ever read. I teach a family Bible Study and normally I would never even consider reading a fictional book for our Bible Study but I thought the spiritual principles in the book were so spot on that I made an exception. My son and daughter-in-law really liked it. Later my daughter-in-law told me that she bought a copy of it so that she could have her own copy at her house. That has been a couple of years ago. It’s not very often that we read a book for Bible Study instead of studying straight out of the Bible but I am very busy right now doing some temporary volunteer work so I told my daughter-in-law to go look at my books on my bookshelf and pick one for us to read (until my schedule lightens up again). She didn’t even go look at the books. Instead she said “Can we read the Angels of Humility book again?” My son spoke up and said he would like that too. So that is what we are going to do. I ordered “The Designer Bag At The Garbage Dump” for myself and an extra copy to give to my daughter-in-law for Christmas. They arrived today and I’m so looking forward to reading it. I just wanted to let you know how much we enjoyed “Angels of Humility” and what an impact is has made on us . It’s not only entertaining but also helped to teach important spiritual principles.