The photo is looking south from a wonderful viewpoint along my trail.

I wrote something on the folly of assigning blame or guilt, and I put it in the Acts 5 review. That truth really came to me tonight as an answer to some work situations, home situations, etc. In a nutshell- blaming won't solve a problem, it only causes more. A far better approach is to come to agreement that an unpleasant situation should be avoided and seek to help each other (of all that are involved) of what each can do to act to prevent or support those actions. This can be done without blame and be successful if all parties are willing to participate.

I added the comment at the end of Luke 6, this also came to me today- how aften we fall short of our goal and promises.


Luke 6 Luke gives an account of the man with a paralytic hand being healed. Jesus calls him forward before the group. So we have healing where friends brought the lame to Jesus, healing where Jesus went to the lame and now a healing where Jesus calls the man forth. One interesting thing that jumps out in Luke's account is after asking if it is "lawful" to do good on the sabbath Jesus looks at ALL the crowd - who do not answer.
Luke gives the account of choosing the disciples, Jesus prayed all night prior to naming them. How many decisions do we stay up praying about all night to make sure we do God's will? We usually feel we "don't have time" or we "need our sleep".
Luke then gives the Beatitudes - people who are afflicted either poor, hungry, sad, hated are blessed. They are blessed because those conditions tend to drive people to God and He is there for them to find. Meanwhile those people who are content tend to lose sight of God and not seek Him.
I have lived verse 30 -"whoever takes what is yours, do not demand it back" Upon reflection my attitude in that situation needed work and it still does. I also tend to latch onto wrongs of that nature - God deliver me from that.
Verse 31 is the Golden Rule, which is often twisted to justify retribution.
Then some hard teachings if you deeply consider them. Love your enemies, lend expecting nothing in return- consider what God does for ungrateful men. In a sense we do lend to our children and don't expect anything back. We should consider everyone our children and that might make it easier to obey that scripture. In addition we are told that by the measure which we give will be the measure that is given back to us. How do you measure your giving, is it time, money, prayer, service, and what is your measure in each of these areas? In which area do you not want to receive?
Then at the end Jesus asks why we call Him Lord but do not obey Him. He illustrates two different reactions of those who come to Him and hear His word. There are those that come to Him, hear His Words, and acts on those Words- That person has a firm foundation that will stand the storms
that we all will face. Our other option is coming to Him, hearing His Words and not acting in which case the storms of life will be very trying. We will experience heartache, sorrow, depression, we will feel unworthy because we will realize we haven't followed His Words. It will affect our walk we will feel unworthy and like we let Him down. The good news is that He loves us, accepts us , and can use those storm catastrophes to draw us to Him. We're all unworthy and we cannot lose sight of that. Has anyone ever promised you something and then not delivered? Has the same person done it repeatedly? And you let him/her? In singing the lyrics to some Christian songs tonight I vocally voiced "to You alone I will always worship", and while I believe that and want that in my life, I sometimes slip into worship of more worldy things. So I know I fail Him. Anyone watching us and hearing our music and our singing, and then seeing us later as we fail Him will certainly come to the conclusion we are a bunch of hypocrits. God isn't willing to give up on anyone though, so he gives us far more chances than we ever deserve, and to the unbeliever I don't really know what to say. We are hypocrits, but yet the Person we follow is not. We all have sinned, and it is our nature (some will even admit it), but the Person we follow had no sin. We recognize His life, attitudes, and characteristics as the goals of our own.