Father, I thank you for who and how you made me. With all of my flaws, weaknesses and sometimes those failures and to believe in myself, I ask for your help today. You created me for more, not so that I can think of myself more highly than I ought to, but not less either.

Thank you for purpose you have in me, and for those I’ve yet to understand and believe I have. Despite what others might say about me or perhaps ignore me, thank you for loving me, and wanting me near yourself. Give me courage to face the things i don’t like or want too. Help me to stand for something greater than myself.

Grant me grace with others and also for myself. I thank you for your blessing on and in myself and for those I live with, work with and interact with. May i begin to see myself as You do, and believe you for a better and great life than what I’m living in and through at the moment. 

Thank you for those who have worked hard to accomplish what they have, and find no peace or rest in them, grant to them a knowledge that You love them as well, may they sense the embrace of your love and spirit as well, and trusting only in your mercy and grace.
Thank you for loving me, but never leaving me as you found me. I pray in the name of your one and only Son, Jesus the Christ. AMEN! 

--
T.A.B.

http://taburns.blogspot.com

"Ubuntu"

I am so very blessed by so many ways I guess I just walked over them without noticing, but I'm taking a moment to tell you my family and my friends, how thankful I am for who and what you are to me. I am blessed with the great group of people around me who are intelligent, intellectual, thoughtful, spiritual, loving, caring  and beautiful, both internally and externally, any man could wish for.

I want you to know how special you are. God loves you, but then He loves everybody, even those who deny or reject Him. You however, those of you who dare to trust Him as Savior, he has a special love for. Even as you struggle, face challenges you never expected or asked for, you are of special interest to Him. Please stop believing the lies your enemy (and enemies) are trying to tell you or about you. They may say, " . . . you think you're something special!" Why for once don't you just agree with them, "just take the 'you think' out of that sentence and you'll be right.

I don't need your approval, or agreement to accept who I am. Oh, is that the door I just heard shut behind you as you walk out of my life, Thanks I needed the room fro a few new friends. Love ya, too bad I won't be seeing or hearing from you anytime soon.

You're special because God made you so. I know the new word on the street, is " . . you're not special!" Sorry, I didn't ask for your approval, I'm moving on, and as we say in the 'hood,' See ya; latter dude!"

Love ya,

"Ubuntu"

from my most recent study:
" prostitute came to me in wretched straits, homeless, sick, and unable to buy food for her two year old daughter. . . .

At last I asked if she had ever thought of going to a church for help. I will never forget the look of pure, naive shock that crossed her face. "Church!" she cried. "why would I ever go there? I was already feeling terrible about myself. they'd just m

ake me feel worse."

Sadly. I know that church, or one very much like it. If you ask, ". . . well what about holiness, and righteousness and preaching truth, you are correct that is, (wait for it, watch this . . . ) comes after His grace has been preached and received through faith in Christ. Not before. The world needs a hope that comes not from what I do, Wall Street on the outcome of the next election, (opp's did I say that out loud,) but from a Savior who transforms from the inside out.

"All right Reverend, you done stopped preach'n and gone to meddl'n!"

Grace is a gift that cost everything for the giver and nothing for the recipient. a gift free of charge, no strings attached.

Grace comes from the outside, as a gift and not an achievement.

"What I needed more than pardon was sense the God accepted me, owned me, held me affirmed me, and would never let go of me even if he was not too much impressed with what he had on his hands." Lewis Smeds

"Grace comes free of charge to people who do not deserve it and I am one of those people."

"I yearn for the church to become a nourishing culture of that grace."

What is Christianity's unique contribution among world religions.
C. S. Lewis responded, "Oh, that's easy. It's grace."

Only Christianity dares to make God's love unconditional.

Love ya,

"Ubuntu"

Abba, Today I thank you for the reminder of your grace. You haven’t given me what I deserve, you favor is so very undeserved, frankly Abba, I don’t get it. Thank you for a love so vast, so deep, so wide I struggle to understand why you love me as you do.

Me, you love me??? With everything I’ve done to hurt and wound you and my ‘fellows,’ you always come back to me with this love of yours. My failures are monumental, (or so i think,0 the lies I’ve told myself about myself and yes a few others; the wound I’ve inflicted on others and those I carry everyday. The feeling of abandonment, or being disregarded, well you get that don’t you?

You came just like me, because you wanted too. Nothing made your or could have forced you to find a way to redeem your lost and sinful creation, but you did because you wanted to restore a relationship we broke. WOW!!! Thanks for caring and acting on my behalf and all of humankind.

Your unmerited favor is so amazing, as I said, I don’t deserve it but you grant it. This life I live, is one of your ‘grace and favor’ gifts to people like me. I can’t pay you back, the cost is too great, yet you ask for nothing but to love and serve you and those you died for.

Forgive me for looking at myself and seeing only what’s broken or letting others ‘give me the benefit of their broken wisdom.” I’m listening to your voice and Word to my heart. What’s that you say Jesus, “I will never leave you or forsake you . . .’ Thank You Jesus!

Abba, I calling the names of these your children, they are my brothers and sisters. I don’t know their struggles but you are aware and concerned about them, not only as a group, but as individuals, you stand ready to defend some and yes even to smite Satan himself on their behalf, do you best work in, on and around them this day. thanks for loving, forgiving, redeeming and empowering us to do what you desire the world to see, christ in you the hope of Glory. AMEN!!!


Love ya,

“Ubuntu”

UBUNTU - 

Ubuntu, the African word for community.  Essentially Ubuntu means that I cannot be all that I need to be unless you are all that you need to be; and you cannot be all that you need to be unless I am all that I need to be.  
Chris Lahr - The Unexpected Path: A Journey of Faith, Race and Justice

Lord, I thank for for this your child, your loved one. Not because I think there is something wrong, but because you love them. Jesus you came to our world, lived and died because you love them.

Too often in our lives people look at us thInk they 'know' me or about me, many don't even know my name; some admire me because of some attribute they think I have and others, well I can't tell what they think, if at all. Here Lord I need you, not for them, but for myself. I thank you for the value you place in me and my life. I thank you for the resources you've provided and yes, those you may have withheld. You have an eternal purpose in those things I want, but cannot get a hold of no matter how hard I try.

May your love for them, be shared with those beyond themselves. Thank you for making 'something' out of every struggle they face. For some it has been a long hard and difficult week; for others, the week has passed without much to notice, either way, I thank you for your presence, comfort, and even the tears shed where no one can see. Thank you for being present with them. Grant them courage to fight, perhaps at of moment of despair and fear. Come Holy Spirit, sit with them as they ride the bus, drive their car and yes, ride their bike, or walk alone.

I thank you for what you are making of us, for walking beside and within us. Thank you for your blessing and trusting you for whatever comes next, I pray in your name, AMEN!!!

Love ya, T.A.B.

"Ubuntu"

Abba,

I thank you for a holiday. Not that many of us who  serve you and your people are never really ‘off.”
I pray that each of us, will be thankful for a time we can spend with our families and friends. If called however, we will respond to whatever the need is, because that is how you ‘wired’ us.

I pray for a time of rest and refreshing, a moment for ‘us.’ may we never forget that we are human being and not human doings. May we never forget we are not what we do, but who you made us to be. I pray for our families as well, our wives (husbands) and families, those who are so often forgotten in the work of ministry. they too are engaged in ministry without having a holy calling. They too weep as do we from time to time. Bless them, no so much for us, but because you see and know them, love them and care for them, even in those times when it seems no one else does.

One day comes and goes so quickly, but allow the memories remain. May we always be willing to be, “broken bread and poured out wine,’ for your and your works sake. I pray for those who will read this tomorrow or later, bless them, because their schedule seem to leave so little time for the things they’d like or want to do.

I thank you for both new and ‘old’ friends, while we are separated by time or space, we are never far from you and your love for us as men and women. Not because we are ‘ministers,’ (some of aren’t) but just because we are yours. The title I bear isn’t who I am, the work I do doesn’t say anything about the value you give me in life. Grant that I may stand a little taller, remembering who you say I am. If the world thinks I’m ‘cocky’ too bad, I’m just your child.

I bless you because despite my faults and/or failures, and your continuing work in my life by the Holy Spirit. I’m yours, because of your sacrifice for me at Calvary. I love you Jesus, thank you.

AMEN!!!