2020.01.15 - Communion With God

1. 1. Like Jesus

1. a. Sunday's message was about being like Jesus, not just doing Jesus stuff and looking or acting like Him but deep down being transformed from the inside out to really BE LIKE HIM.   The key to that change is actually asking God to transform our mind and then allowing  Him to do so.  Many aspects of what Jesus is like we learn from what we have heard or what others believe Him to be like, church goers often have very little first hand experience with actually KNOWING Him beyond a salvation experience 

1. 2. Robert & Rhonda

1. a. Love - My wife and I talk every day.  If I am away on a trip I do all I can at least once a day, even from a foreign country, to find internet and at least let her know I am ok, tell her I love her and make sure she is ok.  Sometimes our conversations are long and deep and sometimes we talk about random and seemingly meaningless stuff, but those conversations over the years have led us through the hardest of times and caused us to be the couple we are today.  It is our communication and willingness to listen, not our love for one another, that has allowed us to move forward trial after trial to hold strong after 26 years of marriage.  Don’t get me wrong, love is vastly important, love causes us to WANT to communicate.  Love is where it started and the foundation upon which we are built, but love alone will not dictate a strong and lasting marriage.  

1. b. while I truly and deeply love Rhonda, and that love does indeed grow daily, our communication and walking together in life is what feeds our love and keeps it strong.  Imagine our relationship if we didn’t talk.  If we lived in separate states with separate lives.  Would our marriage or even our love endure if we did not communicate it to each other often, freely and without condition? Maybe it would.  Maybe we would remain married and even find a measure of happiness - but we would not be the couple we are today or even the inidviduals without ongoing communication with each other, not just TO each other but WITH each other.  Communication and conversation is a two way street.

1. 3. Horizontal And Vertical Conversations

For me to say that I talk to Rhonda and share my heart with her and her with me, to say that sometimes I just need to hear her voice and stills my spirit and gives me hope and strength to get through the day wouldn't surprise you.  To say that I ask her questions and without begging her to respond she does respond and answers and even asks me questions in return would not surprise you, because Rhonda and I are in a relationship, a covenant relationship called marriage.  But some WOULD be surprised that I have daily conversations with God, that I talk to Him and He talks to me, to find that I ask Him questions and He asks me questions ( not that He needs the answers, but that He needs ME to GET the