It's great to be living and loving life

Hello Family, it's great to be living and loving life. It's extremely wonderful to serve a God who loves us unconditionally. It's good being loved and sharing the love of God.
Have you ever thought about a person who is lost? Does not know Christ as their Lord and Savior. Do you ever think about people who go through life aimlessly, wondering what the future holds for them?
Remember we were those people at one time. Do you remember doing any and everything your flesh said do? We were without hope, we had no purpose. We did not know the meaning of living life to the full, until it overflows until someone was bold enough to share the good news with us.
Do we love sinners enough to share the good news, the gospel? It takes love and boldness to win souls to the Kingdom. Will salvation stop at our generation because we are so concerned about our own well being? Fear and the influence of the world has taken away our witness. We must arise, shine and go into all the world teaching people the things we have learned from God. If we don't, we will be good for nothing except to burn. Our living would have been in vain.
We will become castaways, unproductive servants. Don't allow pride, self absorption, and slothfulness to wrap it's tenticals around your heart. Wake up church and let's be about our Fathers business!

**Ephesians 5** MSG
Ephesians 5 The Message (MSG)Wake Up from Your Sleep

5 1-2 Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.
3-4 Don’t allow love to turn into lust, setting off a downhill slide into sexual promiscuity, filthy practices, or bullying greed. Though some tongues just love the taste of gossip, those who follow Jesus have better uses for language than that. Don’t talk dirty or silly. That kind of talk doesn’t fit our style. Thanksgiving is our dialect.
5 You can be sure that using people or religion or things just for what you can get out of them—the usual variations on idolatry—will get you nowhere, and certainly nowhere near the kingdom of Christ, the kingdom of God.
6-7 Don’t let yourselves get taken in by religious smooth talk. God gets furious with people who are full of religious sales talk but want nothing to do with him. Don’t even hang around people like that.
8-10 You groped your way through that murk once, but no longer. You’re out in the open now. The bright light of Christ makes your way plain. So no more stumbling around. Get on with it! The good, the right, the true—these are the actions appropriate for daylight hours. Figure out what will please Christ, and then do it.
11-16 Don’t waste your time on useless work, mere busywork, the barren pursuits of darkness. Expose these things for the sham they are. It’s a scandal when people waste their lives on things they must do in the darkness where no one will see. Rip the cover off those frauds and see how attractive they look in the light of Christ.
Wake up from your sleep,
Climb out of your coffins;
Christ will show you the light!
So watch your step. Use your head. Make the most of every chance you get. These are desperate times!

Blessings,

*Dr. Jeffrey V. Odom*