Entitlements

Current pundits apply the stigma of the cry for entitlements unto the mixture of current generations.  “Entitled to this” and “entitled to that”.  Because I have done “that”, I am entitled to “this” selection of favors.  I am sure I am as guilty of the phrase as those from whom I hear the words, the disease is highly contagious.  The term has its basic and rational applications, but its philosophy extends to a blanketing of attitudes serving the ego and disserving the energy of accomplishment.  In the light of entitlements, productivity is often limited and adventure loses the simplicity of its joy.  And, when we get to the matters of God and His grace, we find the demands for entitlement gloriously out of line.  The Believer who grudgingly serves the dictums of God fails to accomplish their basic intentions.  God graciously and expansively serves us so far beyond the limits of entitlements that we have no reasonable accounting beyond the limitlessness of His joy.  God even goes so far as to admonish man for his lack of grace towards others of his lowly tribe and certainly towards the Giver of all gifts.  I have been a Believer for over half a century and I still find no accounting for the Grace of God.  It is boundless and beyond entitlement.  Philosophically, I propose the question: if the desire for produce has no “accountability” premium, how is man expected to serve the goals of life with diligence?  If the theory of entitlement is dismissed, what in the world will energize us to the successful exercise of our gifts?  God’s answer is beyond my definition, but it is specific in practice.  If entitlement’s theory is not acceptable, how and why can man be expected to accomplish anything at all?  The answer is “by faith”!  Yes, faith, that simplicity of trust in Grace that has equipped mankind since its first bequesting.  Faith is not a dormant, passive measure of ineffective acceptance.  Its benign and divine nature is energy, pure and powerful energy with the Sovereign Accent of Him Who created the world!  Faith is energy, the very equipment of Grace.

So, “sleeper”, awake!  Dismiss the limp entanglements of entitlement and grasp the goal of Grace.  God so loved that not only do we have the finished work of His Holy Son, but we have the finishing working of His Grace.  In glorious reality, grace clasped in the trembling hand of the Believer is empowered by God not only with the ability to accomplish whatever God assigns, but the persuasion of unmerited delight in its processing.  Try it!  The Lord IS my Shepherd!  I shall not want the efficiency of His enabling unto His obedience!  He will lead me to the satisfying meadows of His guidance unto the right paths of opportunity.

His Grace, not my entitlement, will grant me His Holy Fellowship forever.  His Power and His Glory will enable me beyond the limitations of entitlements into the joy of accomplishments of energy resourced by Grace.

I may not be a valid promotional image, but I do offer God’s statement; here, today, try Grace – it works!

Jesus, You Take Over

One day, still deeply depressed, I found a Bible verse that spoke to me: “Yet the proof of God’s amazing love is this: that it was while we were sinners that Christ died for us.”

Romans 5:8 PHILLIPS

I still don’t know all the theological ramifications of that verse, but I know what I understood then of its validity.  Jesus Christ died for me knowing I was a sinner. He knew me and loved me anyway.

He knew that I made and broke resolutions in one and the same breath.  He knew that all the love I claimed to have for others was mostly fake.  He knew that my seemingly gentle manner covered seething resentments and a constantly critical evaluation of others.  He knew the times I lied and all the times I had denied and would deny Him.  He knew the only authority I had ever recognized was one based on threat, yet He offered me authority based on love.  And He took action on my behalf.

More than anything else, the principle in that verse meant that for the first time in my life I had a relationship that was secure – because Jesus Christ already knew all the disappointing truths about me, and had taken action to free me from their pattern.

One night, all alone in my fine, dissatisfying apartment, I cried out, “All right! Jesus Christ, Whoever You are, You take over.”  Can you guess what happened next?  Can you imagine the sudden peace and joy that I experienced?  I can’t, because it didn’t happen that way for me!

The next morning I felt the same, looked the same, and made the disgusting observation that I was the same!  I hoped someone would notice a startling difference and tried to glow, but I failed miserably.

Finally, I admitted to a friend that I had turned my life over to Christ but nothing had happened.  She told me I didn’t have enough faith, so I started going home a little early and trying to have faith.

I didn’t know how it was done, but I suspected it was done with the eyebrow muscles, because that’s the look people had when they talked about it.  You know what I mean, that rolling up of the forehead and wide spacing of the eyes to give the appearance of joy.  I tried it, I really did.  I didn’t have any more faith, but I sure did have a headache!  Oh, I wanted to have some fine validating experience!  How could I ever hope to be a sure-fire Christian without it?

Some of all that effort was fine, but most of it was just plain stupid.  Christ in you will make a difference, but He does it!

Faith is a gift of God.  It is not, never was, and never will be a product of man’s best efforts. It is a gift.

Scripture taught me that Jesus Christ is the author and finisher of our faith – faith comes by hearing; by hearing the Word of God.  God healed me by His Word and in His Word I learned why something really wonderful had happened when I turned my life over to Jesus Christ.

Excerpt from Jeannette Clift George’s first book, Some Run With Feet of Clay

A story from my new children’s book: “Dottie”

Dottie Friendofall was a ladybug.  One day she was in the garden during an afternoon tea party when Pamela Sunaplant, a purple and yellow butterfly, was entering. “Oh, look,” said Wilma Buffington, one of the garden party guests, “there’s a butterfly.”  There were ooos and ahhhhs over Pamela until she nearly sprained a wing fluttering past the party guests.  “Look at the colors,” Wilma said peering out from under the brim of her sun bonnet, “such graceful feathers and the swoops of dancing from flower to flower.”  All the ladies gushed and mushed and pointed their freshly manicured fingers toward the patterning of Pamela.  Dottie Friendofall, the ladybug, got no attention at all and it hurt her feelings.  “I guess I don’t belong in the garden,” she sighed to herself as she backed off the night blooming hibiscus and dropped to the ground.  Marvin Gonkagill, a green leaf snail who was wise in bugonomics, whispered to her, “Dottie, if you didn’t eat the harmful insects and keep the garden clean of toxic chemicals, Pamela the butterfly wouldn’t have a petal to flutter into.”  That made Dottie’s feelers perk up and the dots on her red vest shine.  You see, butterflies who flutter by are great joys, but so are ladybugs who, like any lady, needed encouragement or the daily routine of their work could bug them out of the garden.
Oh, Great and Sovereign Gardner,
teach me how to be the worker doing well the job
You planned ahead for me.
And prompt me often in this day
To applaud the one who, in his way,
Tends to the work I may not do.
For doing and for doing not,
Can be one in praise for You.

Story by Jeannette Clift George

Artwork by Cyndi Crittenden

Thank God for Encouragers

To me the worst disease within humanity’s choices is apathy. The devil delights in turning contentment into apathy. He delights in stopping the workings of God with apathy. He can reverse the energy of anger and direct it into bitterness and from bitterness create apathy and when the Believer is a victim of apathy the devil has it made! However, God has a quick answer to the devil’s tricks – one solid answer is Faith! Amen and amen! Faith with all its wonders of God’s gifts is energy. The energy of faith eats up the corrosion of apathy and will survive by the power of its divine origin when all else falters, fades and fails. What an awesome gift God has given us the capacity to exercise. I had a precious friend, Jody Elliott, who died recently and amid the tears and sorrows of her funeral I heard from each speaker the result of Jody’s never-faltering encouragement. She had a phrase that started the ignitions of all who knew her. After positive and thoughtful deliberation she would say, “Well let’s just do it.” There need be training, thoughtfulness, deliberation and consultation, but after all the proper preparation has been done, how deeply we need someone to say, “Well let’s just do it!” Trying a new thing is frightening. It deserves full and prayerful preparation. Failure is not a welcome mat, but often encouragement is the key that opens the door. God is the divine encourager! And sometimes, His people have special opportunity to encourage each other.

Recently on my way home from work, I stopped in for a quick shopping at my grocery store. The day at work had been a heavy day of work, I mean WORK. The kind of work that means attending to two things of equal importance at the same time with two things waiting your attention; the kind of work that doesn’t quite make the grade and has to be done over again tomorrow; the kind of work that allows the budget to laugh in your face when you thought you had just achieved a balance. Now my grocery store offers me just as much fellowship as it does food and I relished the friendly greetings of manager and servers as I hurried through my shopping list. Turning the corner of one aisle my basket ran into another basket and I greeted a friend hurrying at the same pace I was using. My friend smiled and said, “I was just thinking about you! The work you do is such a blessing to us. Thank you for what you do!” I almost cried. That friend added words like Jody’s encouragement and oh, how I needed it that day. You encourage me by reading this message and I thank you. Your path this day may lead you to offer encouragement to one who has no one but you to offer it. Claim this day as the day to be one of God’s team of encouragers like Jody and Janie and Marge and Nancy and my husband and my friends who no longer meet me in the grocery aisles but whose encouragement outlasts the years. Avoid apathy. It is a deadly weed that saps the beauty of flowers, threatens the words of faith, postpones the action of goodness and will never get the good job done. God, thank You for the encouragers who stock the best food in the grocery stores!

Letters of Encouragement by Jeannette Clift George

The Parenthesis of God’s Plan

The Parenthesis of God’s Plan

The Biblical account of Israel’s journey from captivity unto the promised land, is not only a tribute to the determination of our most Holy God, but it is also exciting reading that has transferred its excitement to movies and plays and stories told in many different forms.  It is also an outline for hope in God when circumstances and predictions offer no hope but in God – and God offers scant evidence of the certainty of His good purposes.  Israel, footsore and hungry, was sprung free from Egypt, but far from the realization of the Promised Land and as yet unaware of the troubles to be met in that land of milk and honey.  Israel was in the parenthesis of God’s perfect plan.  Life in the parenthesis is as mystifying to us today as it was to Israel then.  What is this parenthetical period when we are out of one land of deprivation and not yet into the land of plenty?  Life is like that – and so is hope!  Hope is the flag under which we march when the flag that fostered our first enthusiasm lost its colors in the battle for survival.  At such a time we are in the parenthesis of obedience and can gain wisdom from the very words God gave to His children in the wilderness.  Poor Moses! – a worthy leader although he began as a basket case, standing tall in the tedium of small miseries, poor Moses! – hearing the taunts and belaborings of a multitude who gauged the future by every slimy ditch of circumstances!  Poor Moses! – whose executive leadership under God had brought a multitude out of Egypt across a godly path in the midst of the Red Sea and was now confronted by that multitude suffering hunger, thirst and no comfy motel in the maplessness of wilderness wanderings.  And what did God give Moses in that eternal moment of despair?  He gave to Moses holy advice as relevant to today’s quandary as it was to Israel long ago.  I know it is to me and it may be unto you, this in essence is God’s command to us who find ourselves in the parenthesis of life’s journey, grateful for being out of what was before but hungry for the certainty of where we are going.  God’s command is terse and relevant: Stand still!  God said, stand on what you know that you know!  Stand on the trampled patterning of your faith.  Stand still, you crying wanderer!  Stand still, God says, and watch Me work!!!  You, trapped in the parenthesis, you have the best seat in the house to watch God work!  When you have done all you can do, it is time to see clearly what God will do.  That is faith, stubborn, durable, pertinent faith.  And the very God Who led us out will lead us in, if even for no other reason than His Promise!

Songs in the desert ring truer than songs in the shore.  Sing now, in the parenthesis and you will be better rehearsed for the singing in the land.  In fact, if Israel had sung her songs in the parenthesis, she would have had music well rehearsed for the land of blessing.  Bless Miriam’s heart and tambourine, she had the right idea.  Sing!  Praise the Lord!  Even in the parenthesis!!!

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