Morning

Morning filled with memories of a night of dreams.
Is it hard to get up? - a little.
My feathered friends already tweet outside my windows.
Every morning it gets brighter and brighter. Good to remember and appreciate.
Coffee is in demand this morning, every morning. Aahh.
I enjoy the stillness of the morning
Before the face of God.
The bible on the screen of my iPhone
and His name on my lips.

Present

I am present in the present tense, but am I a present to anyone? I cannot present myself well enough to the public if I am not clear on who I really am. To be present to another is vital for life. Noone is an island. Present present present. If I am not present I am not. If I am not present I could as well be dead. Let people know you are present. Presently. You are a present to your neighbors, You have to believe that. It is not a haughty self promotion, it is a reality in social life. Then be as observant and as considerate as you can to be that precious present.

Find

It has been the fight of my life to find myself. Who am I, why am I here, does anybody care? I have never been good at socializing and bonding, getting friends, so I have mostly done the search alone, which has not made it easier.
When I found Jesus, or I let Him find me, some parts of the puzzle were revealed. But still, how can it be that I am so awkward, why am I so indifferent towards people and projects? Why do I hurt people so much with my selfishness and evilness? And how do I become a better person?
Now the search mostly has become a prayer for help, and it is up to Jesus if He wants me to find more of me on this side of eternity. I try to rest in the knowledge that He has found me.

Try

Just eat a bite. You don't know if you like it if you do not try to taste it! Many parents will know this phrase. As an adult I also have to remind myself that I have to try things out. I have to get out of my confort zone and get my hands dirty by trying. The reality is the test of all things. Our thoughts need the test of reality to become to life, and I don't know the outcome of the thoughts if they remain thoughts in my mind. I have to try to speak out forgiveness towards the person who hurt me. I have to try taking contact in order to get a new friend. I have to try painting that painting, writing that letter, At least just try. It may be the path for your greatest break through!

Hope

"I hope for rain tomorrow; my lawn is yellow from draught". But I am not certain it is going to rain. The worldly hope has its root in sin, we hope for a better world in the near or distant future. But because sin reigns we cannot be certain.
When Paul writes about faith, hope and love in 1Corinthians 13:13 it is the hope God gives. God cannot lie, so if He gives hope, it is a sure thing. Hope is fulfilled, God is to be praised!
The Christian hope is anchored in God's love and in faith in God. We may not doubt God, but hold fast in the hope He gives. All that the Lord does has it basis in love, His love which never fails. Love is the greatest, says Paul. For God is love.
Without love no faith and no hope. We would be lost and forever doomed to live in our sinful self, pityful and detestable. Hope gives future a meaning, as does faith in God and His love. It gives me such comfort, a warm feeling, something to stay alive for and something to die for. I am grateful that I am so much loved although I never deserved to be. Hope is the result of God's decision for us!

Gift

What do you give to the man/woman who has everything? A common question to be posed - and a question to be posed to people of this world who believe to have it all; even heaven itself!
Before I was saved I did not think I had it all, but I was certain that I had heaven before me; that happy ever after in the sky. After my salvation I slowly learned that I did not have it all, and that my natural expectation of being heaven bound was vain and presumptious without guarantees.
The realization that I had presumed wrongly about my eternal citizenship came gradually. The first sensation and realization that Jesus brought me was that Jesus loves me and is alive in me and my world. It was a completely unexpected gift. A foretaste of heaven inside me.
By reading the Bible I learned about my sinful nature and how lost I am without Jesus. I learned that the gift of grace, freedom from sin, salvation,and heaven is the greatest gift of all. And I am awestricken!
I have also learned that the first year's sensation is not something I can expect here. I am on a travel in enemy territory, and it is not always a pleasure. But the gift of faith makes the travel possible and worthwile. I have learned that all I have is Jesus, and that He has promised to be with me eternally.
The gift of heaven is being unwrapped during my walk, and I have learned and will experience that this gift is incomprehensible, that I will never receive any greater gift. Heaven equals Jesus, Jesus equals love. The perfect gift!

Door

Jesus says: Look! I am standing at the door and knocking. If anyone listens to my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he will eat with me.
We say that every new day is a door of opportunities. I can choose to let the door be closed, I can choose to stay where I am or I can choose to go out of the door. But I can also make the better choice and let Jesus in. He wants to have fellowship with me, he wants to eat with me. 
I am not very good at answering Jesus' knock on my door and hear His voice. My day easily becomes centered around myself and my routines. 
Jesus keep on calling on me. I do want to listen do you, and eat the bread of life which is you, and drink the living water from the fountain which never runs dry.

Hide

I hide myself in you God. In the shadow of your wings that's where I want to stay forever. Hide me from the evil that lives in me. Thank you that I am forgiven, that I am set free. I have to remind myself of this every day, and you, dear Holy Spirit keep on reminding me of this treasure, this out of the box transcendent freeing fact. I am free in you, Jesus! You hide me through the storms of life. In your tranquil love I live and breathe. It is the only place I can live and breathe. In the raging storms, when everything around me seems to go absolutely bankrupt, when everything seems to fall apart, then I am in your arms, in the stillness close to your heart. Make my heart, my whole being more like your heart, Lord. I am yours. In the hiding place. Hidden inside of your love, in your forgiveness, in your grace. Forgetting all that is behind, all I see is You!

Tomorrow

I have just discovered "Five Minute Friday" which is a blog link-up in which you participate by writing for five minutes each Friday on the prompt of the week . Now I do feel a bit intimidated because I only see women on display there. But nowhere I see it expressed as a women-only community. So I take the plunge and try to write for five minutes on the one word prompt of the week: "Tomorrow". If I am in the wrong, somebody please tell me, and I will start a blog link-up for men!

Tomorrow has always been a magical word for me. Tomorrow I will do the things that really needed to be done today. Tomorrow has been misused and abused. A prompt for procrastination.

Within the last few years I have learned that it is typical for people like me who suffer from depression or bipolar to be procrastinating. It is soothing to know that I am not alone in that respect. It is not the ultimate sin. But neither is it a legal excuse nor should it be taken lightly "Oh, I suffer from depression so I procrastinate and I can't help it. I can live with it - so you, who are suffering at the expense of my procrastination - you just have to live with it as well". I have to make a way out of tomorrow and stay in today with all its feelings of being in a no comfort zone for action. Beginning today! Today I will do one thing to make me stay on track for today's tasks.

Recently I have bought some watches, pilotes watches, which were produced as collector's items. They were claimed to be quality watches, so I decided to buy them. What a big disappointment when I found out that they were not at all quality. I have decided to give in a complaint on the web site of the company where I bought the watches. Up until now I have postponed it to tomorrow for several days. This I have to do today!

Then yesterday I told my colleague about the watches. He told me he had a watch in his car which I could borrow. When he came back with it he said that I could keep it.

I was stunned and very thankful. God knew my situation and provided the perfect solution to it. The watch is a beautiful blue face Casio Oceanus. It is water resistant and it automatically synchronizes with the Japanese, the American or the European time signal. In short - it is a quality watch. It has the ability to keep me focused on today. The right time is today, not tomorrow. In a worn out phrase: Carpe Diem. I have the responsibility to not postpone to tomorrow what I can do today. So help me God and use my Casio Oceanus to stay on track.

P.S. As a sidenote I right now stumbled upon this blog post http://onethingalone.com/how-to-stop-procrastinating-and-take-action/ which has this graphic imbedded. Amazing!

Oh - and I have to admit I used far more than five minutes. English is not my first language, and this is my first attempt so what do I have to sacrifice to stay within the five minutes - meaning or clarity of thought and language? I decided to not sacrificing anything.

Brian Houston's stand in relation to LGTB

Senior Pastor from Hillsong Church Brian Houston has been criticised for not wanting to take a public stand on LGTB issues. I think people get him wrong. I do agree with the critics that the bible does not condone homosexual connections. But are we called to publicly declare what is sinful and an unappropriate lifestyle? I think the church must do all it can to attract sinful people, not to condemning them. Jesus never condemned, but he said go and sin no more.

Who is more sinful - the adulterer, the prostitute, the robber, the pedophile, the man who almost spanked his son or wife to death, the homosexual, the transgendered? Let's show love and compassion to the world like Jesus did, and let the Holy Spirit convict people of sin and of righteousness. That's His job to deal with people once they are saved and transferred into the Kingdom of God. I would be very careful not to present themes to unsaved people that could scare them away and make them feel condemned and get the impression that "the church hates people like us" because they in their present spiritual state do not understand the point. In times of great revival The Holy Spirit has been seen to convince people on the street of personal sins and made them rush to the altar, but that is the Holy Spirit doing it, and urging the preacher to speak on these subjects. 

To sum it up I do not think it is the church's job to go out and tell people that what they do is sinful. We have no right to judge how people choose to live. It's their own responsibility. If we should do it, then we had to address a lot of things in the world today. Instead make friends with whomever you meet. Show them Jesus' love. Point to Jesus always.

The article that speaks about Brian Houston's opinion is here:
http://www.charismanews.com/world/45811-brian-houston-hillsong-won-t-take-public-stand-on-lgbt-issues 

God's Kingdom

Do you know that God is operating both behind the lines and on the front line? Today in my local church I really experienced both these truths.

The pastor was preaching an excellent message from the Lords Prayer: "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven".

According to him there is three dimensions to God's Kingdom:

1. The horizontal: Citizenship "For our citizenship is in heaven", Phil 3:20, 
2. The vertical: Power (God's power) “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit”, says the Lord (Zech.4:6). 
3. Doing God's will on this earth, where we live "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven". Math.7:21.

It is truly on God's agenda that we realize that the Kingdom of God is not in the church on Sundays alone or through the pastor or in the small group in which we come together. The Kingdom of God is here and there and all around where Christians are living.

So in line with this message it was very appropriate that we had a church café after service where the Mayor of Kolding was speaking and answering questions.
Many people had questions pointing in the direction of How can we as a church be a church for the whole city? Many people want to let the church be more than a club for saved Christians. We want to show the world that there is a message that is full of love and power to heal the broken hearted, to cleanse the leper, to comfort the lonely, to make bonding easier between strangers, to bring joy and feasting into a life full of tragedy and depression.
So the pastor ended up with a conclusion that encouraged us to open our eyes and see where needs are in our city:

• The city has had to cut down on expenses to clean the parks - why not grab a bag and some tools and go out on a Saturday to clean up in the park. 
• The older citizens grieve over the loss of many of their friends, they end up sitting lonely in their homes. Go to the Red Cross and offer yourself as a friend to them or to a family low on resources who needs a helping hand with the kids.
• Young people in the blocks are bored and resort to destructive behavior with graffiti, drinking, crime etc. - why don't you offer your help to be a good role model in their neighborhood? 
• Unemployed people get depressed and discouraged. Why don't you go out and offer to give them a hand with the CV or other elements in the search for a job - or just be a friend?

So many possibilities to be a History maker where you live. To be influential, to bring the good news "in person" - because the Holy Spirit lives in you.

Welcome to my Blog!

Let me introduce myself a bit. My name is Lars Krøgholt, I am Danish and I attend "International Apostolic Bible College" in Kolding, Denmark. I am born in 1954, so I am not so new any more. But I have a son born 2000, so he keeps me young (among other things).

So, I am a Christian, I believe in the living God, who created Heaven and Earth.

The title of my blog: "Sheepish Thoughts": Jesus says "I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. So He is the Shepherd, we are the sheep, the flock He protects. And sheep think about things the have heard in the sheepfold. That's all there is to it. Btw. You'll see this reflected in the URL of my blog: it was meant to be shepherd.blogspot.com, but somehow I misspelled it, but well ... the sheep hears His voice, so this blog is what this one sheep has heard from Him.

Anxiety Is Disbelief

The fall term at the Bible College is rushing off. For several months I have been desperately pursuing an online income opportunity. I have entered into a to me totally new community on the Internet. I admit it: I have worried a lot about my economy, because in this hour I do not have any income, and I have to pay for tuition, for my son's school, I have debt to pay off and other expenses. In this I have ignored the Lord's command Mt.6:31-33 ”Therefore do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat? Or, What shall we drink? Or, With what shall we be clothed? For the nations seek after all these things. For your heavenly Father knows that your have need of all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you.”

This is our heavenly Father's guarantee for us. He is our provider! I have been reminded of this so many times recently. So I do have to take it seriously. Even in the Sunday service today the sermon was about this subject. Have faith in Him that He will provide for you. He does not come too late. I often tend to think ”Can I really trust God that He will provide for me? What if I help God so that I am sure to be able to pay my bills?” But this attitude is really an expression of disbelief. To worry and being anxious is to distrust God!!!

Do you know this: you are anxious about a matter, and it keeps on coming up in your mind all the time. Your thoughts return to this matter all the time. But what good does it do?? Following the verses above Jesus says: ”Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow; for tomorrow shall be anxious for its own things. Sufficient to the day is the evil of it.” (Mt.6:34). Anxiety does you no good at all! To be anxious in this way equals meditating. And if we believe in the power of meditating (as a Christian I do), then we should stay far away from thoughts of this kind. Words are seeds and they are powerful to create what they say. If we sow positive words from the Bible in our mind, we reap positive biblical thoughts. If we sow negative anxious words in our minds we reap a negative worldly and distrusting mindset.

So my assignment to you, dear reader and to my self is to surround yourself with positive biblical truths in order to undermine anxiety and disbelief and a worldly mindset.