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There is a restaurant in the Black Forest on top of a mountain. You can get great Wurst, and Cheese cake, and Black Forest Cake (filled with a ton of alcohol), and of course German Beer. I myself loved to go during the grape harvest season and get a flat pizza type bread covered with Quark cheese and onions known as Zwiebeln Kuchen. It was delicious.  Seasonal celebrations were a part of the culture there. The Germans live by them. After living in Germany as a missionary almost ten years, one thing I came away with was an understanding of noticing the seasons and celebrating the year's passing. January 2018 comes to a close in two more days. Some of you have made commitments, challenges, New Year's Resolutions for this new year 2018. And some of you threw away the concept of commitments and challenges and New Year's resolutions a long time ago. I stood in that camp for many years. But I learned something valuable from the German culture. Germans say, "Schritt für Schritt." [Americans say, "Step by Step."] This concept works for every commitment, challenge, and resolution one will ever make. If you are like me you are celebrating the ending of the month of January and the beginning of the new month of February. Frustration or exhilaration come on the heels of the first month of the year. Either you have given up on your Resolutions completely, or you are reworking Resolutions into your daily life. These commitments, challenges, resolutions are nothing but daily changes made in our habitual moments day in and day out. For example: How do you write a book? It all boils down to one word at a time. My writer friends and I encourage each other to sit down and put some words on paper. Then some more words, then some more words. Until, low and behold in a few months, we have a manuscript. Next, we have the opportunity to enter into the second stage of the process: Revising the manuscript we wrote from the first word to the last. And we celebrate the process. But only talking about those words being written leads to failing once again at the end of the day. The only way we can become an author is to write one word at a time. Our relationship with God is somewhat the same. We can talk all day long about getting closer to the One True God. Or we can take steps to enter into relationship with Him daily. Granted we might fall down, but as long as we get up again, we are moving forward. No matter what our situation the desire of most Christians is to have a deeper relationship with God over time. To go deep with Him means that we are taking steps to get to know Him daily. We try and we will fail. We get up, we fall down. And in our getting up and in our falling down we learn daily to depend more and more on our LORD Jesus Christ. But how? Through His words. Reading the bible He gave us. He gave us His words to allow us to know Him. As we enter into this February, the second month of the year 2018, I challenge us all to deepen our relationship with God. When we come to Him and surrender our lives to the Great I AM, we enter into a life filled with adventure. We have released the place of control in our hearts and have offered that control up to our LORD. We are on a wild adventure that only He knows the ending to. I know that I have been to places I would never have imagined living, working, sharing and offering ways for people to know and be known by God. It is my heart's desire to create a space where He alone becomes the focus for others. How? By bringing myself into Him daily. How? By reading and meditating on the Bible. Nothing really fancy. Nothing really earthshaking. Just the daily habit of stopping and reading and meditating on His Word. Schritt für Schritt! It is a moment by moment life. A growth that He leads me into. An adventure. The step by step life of reading His words and praying daily is that wonderful growth He gives through His Holy Spirit. Available to every child of God is relationship. To know and be known by God is the greatest relationship known to mankind. You have available to you a friend waiting patiently to enter into your world and change your heart 'Schritt für Schritt.' Here on this website, we have set about to make the word of God available in community. We have strategies to help meditate on the bible for anyone in our community on a daily basis. Those that have joined us are finding a wonderful Schritt für Schritt relationship deepening with our Sweet LORD. We will fall down, we will get up. And we will do it together. To know God and to make Him known is the call of the adventure of the Christ Follower's life. May you take the steps you are being called into to know Him and to bring others the opportunity to know Him as well. Be blessed this week. Because He is the I AM, i am Robyn Cox Robyn & Biff Cox RR&BC, LLC ©2016 www.readthebiblewithrobyncox.com/ Find out more about us by clicking: Reading, Reflection, and Bible Community A place where people from all over the world meet daily to read the bible, reflect with thoughtful questioning and share as God leads. In February we will be writing a weekly letter of encouragement and thought. If you are interested in receiving that weekly email sign up here: RR&BC,LL© All writings are protected under copyright laws. Contact the author or link to this page or website if you use or reference.
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Fear is one of the emotions we discuss a lot. Nobody really likes the word or the feeling. Where as Peace, Love, Joy all seem to get a pretty positive response Fear and Anger are not so well received. And for good reason. They are both hard and difficult feelings. And when we compare fear with anger. Fear still gets the more negative response. Why? Because it is an emotion that we do not have control over. Of course there are many who tout the saying: No FEAR! No FEAR! It is the cry from the athlete. He screams as he plummets over a canyon on a bicycle, or she tumbles face first on a ski slope. Many plaster that saying on their helmets, on their cars, their bicycles and even on their school books. I wonder sometime if the louder they scream it or pump it out the more they need to tackle it because they think it has control over them and they don't like that feeling. Fear leaves us trembling in our shoes, with knees knocking and hearts racing. Fear is not a desired experience unless you are in control of the situation. Because when you are in control of the situation, is that really fear? Or is that excitement? challenge? daring? My contention: it is NOT FEAR! This type of 'fear' that has been manipulated and controlled as we determine when and how it is experienced is not fear. Unfortunately true fear is something that comes without preparation. Fear comes in the night. Fear hits us in the face when we least expect it. Fear is not planned, exciting, nor daring. Fear is frightening. And yet, we learn in 2 Timothy that God has not given us a spirit of fear. Instead He gives us a spirit of power, love and self-discipline. Let's look at that passage. " For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline." 2 Timothy 1:7 NLT So how does true fear arrive? If God didn't give us this kind of fear, why do we have it with such strength and how does it stop us in mid air and within our tracks? "And this is what He says to all humanity: The fear of the LORD is true wisdom; to forsake evil is real understanding." Job 28:28 [there will be more written about this in the future - stay tuned :-)] This blog is entitled Learning How to Fear the LORD well. I myself have come to the conclusion that if I can learn how to fear the LORD well, I will no longer deal with fear that attacks and stops me in my tracks. Granted I am human and will continually be confronted with fear. But if I can put my trust in the God of the Universe and fear Him in the proper way, He will give me the spirit of power, love, and self-discipline. And I will entrust Him with the outcome. And this is the truth that we have been given in the Good News. Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He came to save us from our sin and give us a new life in Him. And through Him we find a holy life. Read the rest of the passage below. 8. "So never be ashamed to tell others about our Lord. And don't be ashamed of me, either, even though I'm in prison for him. With the strength God gives you, be ready to suffer with me for the sake of the Good News. 9. For God saved us and called us to live a holy life. He did this, not because we deserved it, but because that was his plan from the beginning of time ⏤ to show us his grace through Christ Jesus. 10. And now he has made all of this plain to us by the appearing of Christ Jesus, our Savior. He broke the power of death and illuminated the way to life and immortality through the Good News. 11. And God chose me to be a preacher, an apostle, and a teacher of this Good News. 12. That is why I am suffering here in this prison. But I am not ashamed of it, for I know the one in whom I trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until the day of his return. 13. Hold onto the pattern of wholesome teaching you learned from me ⏤ a pattern shaped by the faith and love that you have in Christ Jesus. 14. Through the power of the Holy Spirit who lives in us, carefully guard the precious truth that has been entrusted to you." 2 Timothy 1:7-14 NLT This sounds incredibly simplistic. But Christ says that if we come to him like children, he will meet us where we are. Childlike simplicity. The only people I have ever seen No Fear exhibited is in certain children. They will walk off of sofas, jump into swimming pools, walk into streets and jump into daddy's arms and fly higher than their own height with NO FEAR. Nothing but joy and giddy excitement. I want to walk in giddy excitement with my LORD. I want to learn how to fear Him well. I want to gain wisdom and understanding. I want to do all of this until the day I die. Wanna join me? Because He IS the I AM, i am robyn rochelle cox Robyn & Biff Cox RR&BC, LLC ©2016 www.readthebiblewithrobyncox.com/ Find out more about us by clicking: Reading, Reflection, and Bible Community A place where people from all over the world meet daily to read the bible, reflect with thoughtful questioning and share as God leads. In February we will be writing a weekly letter of encouragement and thought. If you are interested in receiving that weekly email sign up here: RR&BC,LL© All writings are protected under copyright laws. Contact the author or link to this page or website if you use or reference. Time trots on. I pray that you are in tune with the passing of time for He makes it clear that we are to number (count) our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. (Psalm 90:12) In this new year I desire to do this. I will fail, but getting up and dusting off and moving forward. Yes! Don't you agree that is a most valuable thing. Not just what we do, but how we do it. Amazingly it is our seventh week to observe some of the scriptures I brought up to you on November 20th, 2017. We did take one week to simply reflect on some of the literary mentors in my own life and their words over life and Christ on December 25, 2017. But other than that we are pushing forward to:
Today we open into a passage in 1 Timothy. A little background on this author might be helpful. This book is the letter Paul wrote to Timothy. Timothy was Eunice's son and Lois' grandson. They were diligent in teaching Timothy the Scriptures of the OT. From certain accounts it has been determined that Timothy actually accepted Christ with Paul. Timothy's father was a Greek, and Timothy had not been circumcised. Paul asked Timothy to be circumcised. Not as an act of salvation, but as an act of ministry to those he was ministering to. You see he was ministering to many Jews and even his mother, Eunice, was Jewish. I wonder if Paul just talked it over with Timothy and said something like, "Let's just take this circumcision conflict off of the table so we can get to the heart of people." I really would like to have been a fly on the wall for that conversation. Not the actual surgery, but the conversation! Ouch!! Paul valued Timothy as a person that showed compassion for people and commitment to the LORD. He took Timothy with him on several missions. As Paul's ministry drew to a close he reached out to Timothy to encourage him to remain strong and true to his calling. This is one of two letters (Epistles) that Paul wrote to Timothy to encourage him. I find many encouraging words in both Timothy 1 and 2. However, today we look at these verses 1Timothy 6:17-21. "Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed. O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you, avoiding worldly and empty chatter and the opposing arguments of what is falsely called "knowledge" ⏤ which some have professed and thus gone astray from the faith." 1 Timothy 6: 17-21 NASB  Mentors are so important in our lives. I have often turned this passage into a mentoring conversation. Am I beginning to allow this present world to press in on me? Have I become conceited or fixed my hope on riches? On what I can have materially instead of on God who will meet all my needs and bless me with all good things? Am I doing good? Not am I good, am I doing good? Am I generous and willing and ready to share? Am I storing up for myself treasures of a good foundation for the hardships of the future. Those deep treasures of truth and courage that are needed to press forward and bring me through tough times and hard challenges that are sure to come in the future? Am I really delving into LIVING life in full with Christ? It is for sure the only way to really LIVE! Am I guarding what has been entrusted to me? Do I value my relationships? Am I a good steward of what has been given to me? Am I entering into communion with God daily? And this word about avoiding worldly and empty chatter. WHEW! This in a world that has more words than every before floating around on the internet, on the television, in our conversations, and in our brains. Can I step away and remove myself from all of that? Am I strong enough to stay fully focused on the reality of God instead of the frustrations of the moment? Do I spend my time bantering, or debating, or even more divisively ⏤ downright arguing, with other believers over things that are really not important? Things that are not salvation issues. Things that will be explained when we meet God face to face on the other side. Do I spend my time on these things, or do I spend my time on sharing the Good News in its majesty and yet simplicity. Am I living the Good News of Christ Jesus? Entering daily into His great gift and sacrifice of Himself for me. Let me keep the salvation road simplified by the truth that Christ came to save. Accept Him and He will do the work to change me and to change those He calls His children. How? By giving us the thirst, the desire. By taking us to places that are dark where there is no other place to turn but to Him. By allowing us to go through hard times. By giving us people in our lives that call us back to His heart. By setting really good books down in front of us that we pick up and read and are convicted about where we are and where we are going. If any of these describe you ⏤ run don't walk back to the safety of His heart! God receives the glory for saving us. God is the one who receives the glory for bringing us back from the cliffs. As believers we encourage each other. We share in our struggles. We build each other up. But it is He alone who draws and heals. It is He alone who saves. Boy am I ever thankful for that. It is not up to me. It is His job. And He will do it. So there you have some thoughts on 1 Timothy 6:17-21. I am sure it is clear why it is one of my favorites. It is such a good mirror to put up for myself. Something to check myself on. A passage pointing me toward Him and not toward the world. A mentor passage! I encourage you to ponder this particular passage this week. God is very gentle when we go to Him and ask Him to show us where we are letting the presses of our culture form us, instead of the Holy Spirit. When we ask Him to help us, He does! I pray that you will find Him in your mornings and in your evenings. Spend time with Him. He is a wondrous adventure. Please sign up for our encouragement emails below. Because He IS the I AM, i am robyn rochelle cox Robyn & Biff Cox RR&BC, LLC ©2016 www.readthebiblewithrobyncox.com/ Find out more about us by clicking: Reading, Reflection, and Bible Community A place where people from all over the world meet daily to read the bible, reflect with thoughtful questioning and share as God leads. In February we will be writing a weekly letter of encouragement and thought. If you are interested in receiving that weekly email sign up here: RR&BC,LL© All writings are protected under copyright laws. Contact the author or link to this page or website if you use or reference. "For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:38,39 There have been times when I have felt alone. Can you relate? I have moved 40 times in my life. Each one of those moves created within me a disconnect and a feeling of loss and loneliness. I married and had three children. Each birth created a new expanse of joy, but also a feeling of disconnectedness to the person I was into another type of wife and mom. My husband and I separated. Another type of lonely. Then divorced and an even greater type of lonely crept into my life. During that time, that dark divorce time, I was re-introduced to the God Most High. I began to read the bible and reflect, contemplate, and meditate upon those words that God had set down on paper for me to know Him. I found this promise Romans 8:38-39 that I could count on. It changed my life. Knowing that I was never alone began to refocus me. Think about it. NOTHING can separate us from the love of God. If we have the love of God we are empowered to do so much more than when we are simply flying by the seat of our own pants. Recognizing this truth allows us to be involved in life at a different level than when we do not know it. For me it made me more sensitive to the needs of others around me. I went to Holland as a chaperone on a youth mission trip in 2000. The darkness and hopelessness I saw there from single women with teenage children broke my heart. These women could not believe that I had relationship with my own children. They couldn't believe that my children weren't destroyed in the divorce. They were confused how to get help for themselves and for their own children. But most of all they couldn't believe that even after divorce I still loved, worshiped, and connected daily with God. The knowledge that nothing can separate me from His Love sustained me both on that mission trip and back into life again afterwards. But something had changed. I was broadened and a seed was planted. God does that. I continued working as a reading/writing specialist for many years, but there was a yearning to help beyond my own After my children were grown (one firefighter, one in University, one married) I left for the mission field. I moved to a foreign country at the age of 49. With more to give, and people in the world that not only needed but wanted what I had to offer, I flew off one cold January morning in 2006. But even in that there was a huge amount of loneliness. I was alone, away from my children, church of 25 years, and friends. But, most of all culture. Nothing was familiar. Life was hard. Repeatedly, I came back to this anchoring passage. About to meet a woman for coffee to discuss life and where it was going, how to make choices, when to step out in faith... I could not have done it alone. I did those things, those sharings, those ministries with the strength of being convinced: Nothing could ever separate me from the love of God! Nothing could every separate you from the love of God! Jesus Christ, God's Son came to ensure we are connected to the God of the Universe. He came with the specific purpose to bring us into relationship with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. That truth releases me into that wonderful place of glory and praise to the Holy God who saved me from loneliness, sin, and death. He has done the same for you. This verse if pretty powerful and heady stuff. It sounds BIG, because it is. The Book of Romans is considered to be the most significant theological letter ever written. Some say that Augustine was converted after reading this letter. And we know that Martin Luther, the hero of the Protestant Reformation, was reading Romans when he determined that it was only by faith we are saved, not by the law in anyway. So this particular book in the Bible is one filled with foundation truths and thrilling revelations. This particular passage, Romans 8:8-9, is one of those foundational truths when planted in our hearts grows faith. It is big enough to meet you in the night, propel you powerfully when you are on the road in despair, and keep you throughout a work drained day. I encourage you to seek this truth of connectedness to the God Most High. When you have God with you there is nothing to fear, you are never alone, and you have a lot of good stuff to be found and shared with others. Seeking Him is a daily challenge. The world, and Satan himself, doesn't want it to happen. So, in seeking Him we are connecting and in connecting we are able to relax into the life that is built before us. May God bless you as you connect with Him through this powerful passage: "For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:38,39  Because HE IS the I AM, I am robyn rochelle cox. Thank you for coming. If you would like to receive an email update of our blog weekly, please send a note here: rrandbc@readthebiblewithrobyncox.com RR&BC,LL© All writings are protected under copyright laws. Contact the author or link to this page or website if you use or reference. It is 2018! If you remember, Thanksgiving I began a series on eight verses/passages I am thankful for. Well, as I turn my calendar over in my hand, I am happy to say one of the verses that gives me such a yearning in gratitude is Romans 8:1. To have this verse as the one I am looking at in more depth on this day (New Years Day) - well it just makes me happy. Because Romans 8:1 is jam packed with Good News! And every New Year is a happier year when we start with some good news! So! Happy New Year! We have something to celebrate. Romans 8:1 "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Talk about a celebration. Did you get that? We, Christians have the gift of no condemnation. We can actually know that we don't need to hold onto blame, guilt, or shame. No condemnation! Think about that for a second. No condemnation....Do you know what that means? Let's look it up. Merriam Webster Dictionary says condemnation means: 1. the act of blame 2. that act of judicially condemning 3. the state of being condemned ... You get the picture. Condemnation is a bad thing. It means you did something bad/wrong and you have to pay the price for it. And this verse says, "there is no blame" if we do something wrong. Because of Jesus Christ the Son of God, coming into our world, living, dying and rising again we have the ability as fallen beings with all sorts of issues, mistakes, errors, to get off scot-free from any judgment. Right? Hold up. No, this is not really what is being said here. That would be nice, it would be easy, and would be the way we would like it to be. But in reality, it doesn't work that way. And it wouldn't be good if it did. It would be a cheap grace. Let me see if I can explain it like this: God is God and we are not. God is perfect and we are not. God is holy and we are not. To be in God's presence (like you know, for eternity) everything has to be holy. God cannot be around anything in heaven that is not holy, clean, pure. It goes against who He is. So, because He is holy, He has set up a place to live in holiness. But God is a relational being. Even within himself He has the three-in-one. So as this relational being, he decided to create the world so that we could come and join Him. Baden Württemberg, Deutschland (Germany)  He created us so that we could spend eternity with Him. He is all about relationship. But we messed up and did what was wrong, i.e. Remember Adam and Eve? Remember the fruit? Yes, big mess up. Big problem. Epic fail! And then, God kicked us out of the Garden we messed up and ate that fruit in. Why? Not because He was mad at us, but because we had just removed the possibility for us to be in heaven forever with Him. We were no longer clean. We had sinned. After that if we ate from the Tree of Life, as we had eaten from the forbidden fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, then, we would be unable to ever be in complete relationship with God Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Why? Because we would live forever in our sinful state. We could never go to heave for eternity. We would be stuck on earth in our Sin. So God, in His goodness, removed us from the Garden of Eden. He removed us and began Plan B. (not really something He didn't know was going to happen, but we will call it Plan B just to keep our own head straight about it.) In this Plan B God began another way built into our world that would allow Jesus Christ, God the Father's Holy Son to come as a baby to the world, be born to a virgin, and grow up to be completely free from Sin. Jesus Christ would be the perfect picture of God as a human. This way we human beings would get an idea of who God is. Then God's Son would lay down His life by being nailed to the cross after being beaten and maimed and crushed by evil. He would take the Sin of all of the World upon Himself because He was completely free from sin He could absorb it. An unblemished Lamb, spilling His perfect, righteous, holy Blood to cover all the Sin of the world for all the years the world had been and would be around. From that point on, Jesus Christ became our substitute. And when I die and am called to stand in front of the holy God and He asks me what I have done to be worthy to go into that holy heaven with the perfect God I will have my Savior who is Christ my LORD come to my side and say to that Father-God-Judge: "I took Robyn's sin away on the cross. I cover her with my holiness and my righteousness. Because she accepted me as her Savior she is worthy to be called a child of Yours, Father God." And then there is this amazing thing in Chapter 7 of Romans where we find a discussion over the victory we have in Christ Jesus. Victory over all of our fleshly desires while we are still on this earth. The Spirit helps our weakness. That hard situation that comes when we realize we alone cannot conquer our unwise desires. Only the Holy Spirit who is available to me through the presence of Jesus Christ in my life - that is the only way I can find victory over the pulls of the negative side of my human nature. I alone cannot do it. And God Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have developed a plan that allows me to walk on this earth without condemnation - without blame - without unnecessary guilt - without shame. Because Jesus hung on the cross and died for me (for you, too) we are allowed to enter into a life that does not beat us down with our mistakes. He has willingly taken our legal place of punishment at that judgement seat. And because we accept Him into our lives we are allowed to walk freely in this world. You might believe that as a Christian you are not judged by the Great God Who IS. Well, we are all judged. There is not one of us that is sinless, and none of us are worthy to go into the holy gates of heaven. We are not worthy to have deep relationship with Him without Jesus. We just can't keep all the rules that were laid out in the Old Testament. We fall flat on our faces every time. However, in this judgment of guilt, if/or when we have accepted Jesus Christ as our Savior before that judgment, Jesus steps up because He has taken our sentence of death. Christ our Savior stands beside us in the courtroom. He has taken our Sin on himself at the cross. And Jesus Christ says to the Great God Who IS, "Abba, Daddy, I got this. I paid the price. I was beaten, bled, ached, and died for Robyn. And when she received me as her Savior I gave her that free gift of living on this earth and in heaven freely. No guilt, No shame." I can live, you can live, the world can live freely because Jesus came not to condemn the world but to save it. (John 3:17) We can live freely." Naturally, there are consequences for our choices. If we drink and drive, get in an accident, and someone dies ⏤ we must pay the price. If we decide to take matters into our own hands and do something immoral or illegal we must take the consequences of those actions. But once we are His child we do not have to hold onto guilt and shame for those evils that we have committed. We can come boldly before the throne of God and stand, not shrivel and quake. And this verse Romans 8:1 confirms that we are able to walk freely in our lives with Grace for His sacrifice. May 2018 be a year when you enter into His Grace. Please join those of us that are enjoying a daily reading and getting to know God better. We read a little bit of scripture. We ponder a few thought provoking questions. We might even share a little bit of what God has shared with us. And we do it daily. Step by step growing in His grace. If you have any questions email us at rrandbc@readthebiblewithrobyncox.com And if you would like to join our membership we the payment page is under our membership tab. Or click right here and you will find how to join. We are here because God has called us to make a safe place available for others to share His words. Because He is he I am, I am Robyn Rochelle Cox We pray that He will become your ALL Robyn and Biff Cox RR&BC, LLC ©2016 All that is written here on RR&BC LLC website is © Problems? Please contact Biff at rrandbc@readthebiblewithrobyncox.com Want fewer emails? Or, to unsubscribe? Feel free at anytime. Simply write Fewer Emails or Unsubscribe on the subject line of an email: rrandbc@readthebiblewithrobyncox.com RR&BC, LLC©2016 All writing is protected under copyright laws. NO COPYING ALLOWED on private membership page. |
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