The most interesting but necessary part of sharing my faith is to sometimes (often) take myself out of it – meaning taking the “it’s MY faith’ – “the faith that is MINE” out of the expression of my faith walk and “get myself out of the way” – out of God’s Way for me. Out of the Way of the Holy Spirit to work THRU me.

And what an amazing thing to do this AT WORK! Yes! To both express faith and to remember faith doesn’t stop with you – but work THRU you. Cool. And the encouragement to walk away from my fear of sharing.

My faith blog – FOR WORK – the encouragement to be more open has come from our CEO – bring your authentic self to work. And so they/we started a Multi-Faith employee resource group ERG.

Before posting on the local share-group for our Multi-Faith ERG. I sent it to our team leader – a woman in the HR department who is growing in her faith – who recently posted her own writings of the Lenten season and Ash Wednesday. She made some really good edits and pointed out where I had lost my way in the middle of the piece by trying to explain ALL of Christianity in less than a page – ah yeah… I was in the way of my own writing – EXCITED YES – but in the way of the Way. And so cohesive editing – best for the audience of TEACHING – all while getting the opportunity for REACHING – and STRENGTHENING others.

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE LOVE! The Holy Spirit lead – and a blessing indeed! – and simply to witness at work – the Lord allows us boldness – and to be an authentic Christian means to allow the Lord to bring us to the challenges as well as the easy streets. BUT IN LOVE!!!

We work at our witness and witness in our work – we work in our work and we witness that we have something to witness about. Wonderful.

Here is my writing (BELOW) remembering that often we do need to take ourselves out of the way to make a way… 

Thank you for letting me share!

AMEN

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Sharing about Easter.

By Faith, I would like to take a moment within our new Multi-Faith ERG site, to share about this Lenten Season, Holy Week and Easter, to write about and explain my understanding of Christian faith – of which I could say is known ‘by Faith’ – by the actual faith coming into and from us divinely rather than simply to us and stopping. In other words, we are gifted this ability to share and to encourage. I am not a pastor or scholar, but a learning soul in discipleship mode, continuing to walk, to be eager, and be willing to learn as well as share. I will not be able to explain ALL Christian beliefs, as there are thousands of denominations (a good reference is the book, “Handbook of Denominations in the United States,” by Mead and Hill), but I can speak to the understanding that Christian faith is to be truly understood and practiced as a RELATIONSHIP over only performing rites in a ritualistic religion. Where does one learn this? Christians are asked to read the Holy Bible – both Old and New Testaments – and are asked to look for individual relationships with Jesus, who is identified as “the Word”. 

A definition of ‘deity’ for Christians would certainly be that Christians follow Christ, Jesus Christ, as the word derives from Greek speaking of ‘The Christ’, or ‘the Anointed One’ as a savior from the sin that separates people from God. It is the faith in forgiveness that we share. Now certain faiths, but not all, respect and understand a divine Trinity of God the Father, God in Jesus Christ the Son, and God in an advocate in the Holy Spirit, three in one. For the Trinity, the Holy Spirit is mentioned in the scriptures of the Bible as the advocate who was sent by God after Jesus’s ascension after Easter on Pentecost and continually. The Holy Spirit is sent to help be inside each person, and this is called ‘to be moved by the Spirit’ and important to note is that the Holy Spirit is always pointing back to Jesus as Lord. The Trinity is said to be represented in the favorite Easter flower, the Lily, which has parts in whorls of 3’s. 

At a time approximately 2000 years ago, now celebrated in the holiday called Christmas, the word suffix ‘mas’ means ‘celebration’, Jesus came into the world as ‘God in the flesh’, referred to as Emmanuel, meaning ‘God with us’. Scripture tells us that Jesus was present from the beginning with God, and then came down to earth. Jesus walked the earth for approximately 33 years as is recorded in the New Testament, containing teachings and merciful miracles. As we are approaching Easter (31MAR2024, or 05MAY2024 for Orthodox observations), Christians experience the culmination of Lent in the pondering of Holy Week. This one-week observance starts with Palm Sunday as Jesus enters Jerusalem in both joy and sorrow as the people think that he is an earthly Jewish king rather than God, then the Last Supper, Jesus’s arrest, and Good Friday, the day of crucifixion and death. Jesus always stated that He came to do His Father’s Will, which would fulfill the prophecies resurrection on Easter Sunday, removing sin and death. Two more holidays after Easter celebrate Jesus’s ascension to Heaven as well as Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples of Jesus. This moment is also referred to as, “the birth of the church,” as the event opened the opportunity to share the knowledge of Christ’s Good News of forgiveness into the world. 

‘By Faith’, a known aspect of Christianity is that Christians are ‘not of this world’ but ‘of Heaven’ and are temporarily placed into this world, thus the, “from dust you came and to dust you will return’ aspect of Ash Wednesday. Jesus came to allow covering of sins by covering all ‘with His blood’ as forgiveness. A key aspect of Christianity is to understand that with man it is impossible, but with God, all things are possible. And thus his journey is of sacrifice. Easter, the resurrection of Jesus, connects to the Old Testament and the brokenness of the people from their ‘covenant’ with God, starting with Adam and Eve who experienced ‘original sin’ separation by breaking God’s commands. Continuing into Moses’s time with the Ten Commandments, the people also broke adherence, thus distancing themselves from God’s companionship. Although a system of sacrifice for the people to attend to the rift was put in place, the plan from the beginning was that God was making a ‘New Covenant’ – defined and achieved as ‘redemption’ by Jesus entering the world to be slain as the ultimate sacrificial lamb – a ransom for all sins of all people – restoring the relationship that restores God and man. The Bible states that God is Love – and we love because He first loved us, experiencing Jesus’s calling as a Shepherd, to hear and understand His Voice. When Christians say ‘Amen’ it indicates agreement, acceptance, and hope. We all know that the world has so many conflicting noisy distractions clamoring for our attention. By faith, we also know in Christianity that the world experiences brokenness, and that the evil in the world is created and fostered by the opposite of the Love of God – by a fallen angel named Satan. By faith, we know from the first readings in the book of Genesis, that Jesus as Messiah would come to crush the power of the devil, and this win over sin and death is already accomplished by the Easter miracle. Christians also know that Jesus will come again into the world, at any time, to complete the purpose of silencing the devil in all ways, and Christians are awaiting a second coming at any moment. With a second coming of Christ, a new Millennium begins on Earth and then a forever future in Heaven, with a New Jerusalem yet to come. 

In conclusion – which is always a new beginning – Christianity can be explained by sharing the best of us in this world with others, to bring God’s best to others by sharing His Love and forgiveness. ‘Love Wins’ may be a catchy phrase, but it is a scriptural quote: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” By faith – the world is to know we are Christians by our Love. 

Sending hopes of many blessings to you and your family now and throughout all the holidays this spring. 

Thank you for the opportunity to share. 

Debbie