THIS WEEK was the last week of my junior year of high school! Wow! I know God has been guiding me on this school year for sure. There's no way I could have endured a year of Physics class every day without Him making it possible (He also showed me in books like "The Case for a Creator" by Lee Strobel that physics is very interesting, even if it isn't my thing). I'm grateful for a break.
The same day that the school year ended I left for Texas, and that's where I'm blogging from. It's wonderful here. I've seen a few of God's particularly beautiful sunsets, and I spent yesterday afternoon in a pretty place in the country called Segno. I had so much joy walking into the house there and being surrounded by my loved ones that I hadn't seen for almost a year. I miss the people back in Florida, and I miss my parens who just arrived in Seattle a little while ago to celebrate their 20th anniversary. But I'm having a wonderful time, and I have alot of really cool things to tell you this week.
Have you heard the song "Empty Me" by Chris Sligh? This song was stuck in my head for a while earlier this week, and thus it was for a while my theme song. Look here for the lyrics real quick: http://www.uulyrics.com/music/chris-sligh/song-empty-me/
This week I was working on Chapter Eleven in The Purple Book by Rice Broocks and Steve Murrell (I'm almost finished with the book, which has twelve chapters). This chapter is called "Evangelism & World Missions" and it reminded me of the necessity of a disciple's applying the goals of true discipleship to his life. I like this quote, "If we are Christ's body - His presence in the world today - then Jesus' mission is our mission." This means that as followers of Jesus, the Redeemed of God, we have been given a responsibility alongside our joy of salvation. It is our job to keep His commandments. That's what it means to follow Him.
His commandments include things like loving your neighbor, forgiving people as we would like to be forgiven, seeking and loving God first and foremost, sharing with other people both through our words and actions. I've realized that these commandments are only done when we love God enough to obey. Jesus said in John 14:14-15, "[14] If you ask anything in My name, I will do it. [15] If you love me, keep My commandments." When we love God and obey God then people see Him in us because Jesus is in us. You understand that's not just poetic: it doesn't mean Jesus has influenced our mindsets. It's also not physical: there isn't another whole body of the person of Jesus stored inside our own bodies. It is spiritual: the Spirit of God actually fills us up and empowers us to advance His Kingdom. That's how people see Jesus in us. It's not something that depends on us and how we feel. The only thing it has to do with us is our willingness to obey.
Remember that Chris Sligh song? I suggest you go find it. I've been hearing it on 88.1 (The Promise). "(Chorus) Empty me of the selfishness inside, every vain ambition and the poison of my pride, and any foolish thing my heart holds to. Lord, empty me of me so I can be filled with You!" It makes it hard for people to see Jesus in us when we refuse to submit to His will. This means that we agree to lay down every part of our lives and let it belong to Him. It means we let Him sit "on the throne of our hearts." It means that God is not only our first priority, but He directs all of our priorities.
I've heard it compared to being "transparent," like a window. If we cling to things God doesn't like, the window gets spotted and dirty. I made a 'stained glass' (sort of) art piece this past December which stood for a while in front of a dirty window in the art room at school for several months. So I understand the effects of having a bad window. The light didn't come through well enough to show the picture in an aesthetically pleasing way. The yellow was too dark and the whole thing looked discolored and dirty. Now this piece stays in my house in front of a clean window and I really like how it looks. It's not that the piece is badly painted, it's just that it depends on the quality of light. That's how it is with Jesus. How are people supposed to see His loving, humble, forgiving nature through me if I have an idol or a bad habit stuck to me like dry paint on a window, keeping me from imitating Him?
It is not always an appealing thought to think of clearing oneself of such flaws, just because it seems hard to "empty me of me." But it's very worthwhile if it means I get to be filled with God instead. To be emptied of oneself is what it means in the New Testament when we are instructed to "die to the world." In 1 Corinthians 15:31 Paul writes "I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily." It's also what it means when Jesus says to "seek first the kingdom of God" (Matthew 6:33) and to "love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind," (Matthew 22) which He says is the most important commandment of all. All of this means to make yourself willing to lay aside anything, no matter how important, even family, even your job, even the things you look forward to or rely on, for the sake of doing what God want you to do. This does not mean you have to walk down the street with only the clothes on your back and leave everything behind to become a missionary leader in the Middle East. It means that God is so important to you that, like another song says, you can say "all my delight is in You Lord, all of my hope, all of my strength." He is the source of your satisfaction, the love of your life, the very most important thing. Your eyes are set upon him to see what He'll do and what He wants. You desire with all your heart, soul, and mind to please Him and to make sure what you do glorifies Him. You conform all of your ways to what He has said is right. And this is reasonable because, as He's been helping me this week to understand, nobody else could ever love us back and bless us back and make our efforts worthwhile the way He can. Everything God does, He does the way only He can. He can make anything work out, even when it seems overwhelming and impossible. It's our job, as His people, to put our faith and trust in Him, especially in the hard times. That's the kind of person I want to be. Nobody becomes that way in an instant, but He gives us that desire from the moment we give Him control and confess our weakness, our lack of self-sufficency, and accept His gift of salvation through the sacrifice He made in His Son Jesus. That desire for God increases over time: it's a lifelong journey toward spiritual maturity in which our flaws and weaknesses are resolved and mended over time by the Spirit. Jenny White once explained it this way: the Spirit never ridicules us for our flaws, but He points them out to us as a friend points out a smudge on a friend's face. God might call us to quit this or start this, and when we make the decisions, whether small and easy or large and difficult, to obey Him, He will strengthen us and bless us as a reward for our trusting Him that He knows what is best.
I heard a man on the radio (still The Promise) say it this way: He comes and fills us up when we confess our weakness, our inability to save ourselves or make ourselves perfect. God has always wanted us to humble ourselves before Him. After all, much of the Old Testament tells about the anger He feels toward those who lift themselves up and trust in flimsy things instead of humbling themselves and trusting Him. He rewards us for our decision to trust Him instead of ourselves by giving us strength and direction so we can improve. I pray to improve continually all my life. I know enough to know that I don't know nearly everything and I can never will, no matter how many books I read.
In 2 Corinthians 12:8-10 Paul writes something which I think everyone needs to hear, “[8] Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. [9] And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. [10] Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” He promises to be the source of strength to those who lack it. You see how much joy Paul had after Jesus spoke to him? He had enough joy to face anything, confident that it did not matter what happened to him because he had a source of strength which nobody could take from him.
When I was in Segno yesterday, a beautiful, quiet place with grass and trees and houses built by my family’s hands, I watched my Aunt Jennifer try to help her baby son Elijah understand the best way to fill a toy bucket with water. Elijah had been given a tub of water and things to play with in the water. He stood in the grass with a little blue bucket in his left hand, and he tried to fill it with water by dunking his right hand into the tub and dripping the water into the bucket! You can imagine this was not very effective, but Eli didn’t notice. Aunt Jen took a spongy toy, filled it with water, and used it to fill up the bucket much more quickly. That way makes more sense, right? Elijah watched her and did not complain, but he still wasn’t willing to try it her way. He tried a little more to use the drip technique, and whenever she filled it he just dumped it out – oops! Gravity. He did have fun sucking on the sponge, though.
To me this looks like the way people try to be sufficient for themselves. God’s way is always the best way. Elijah’s attempt to fill the bucket by dripping water into it with his fingers looks like the way we just can’t satisfy ourselves on our own. With absolutely anything you can find in this world, satisfaction is temporary and partial. We always need more, better, smarter, easier, faster, and we can never get enough. Our buckets are never full. When we accept that we are weak and that only God can fill us, we stop dripping water into our buckets. We stop seeking satisfaction in the world. And we let Him fill us up instead so that we’ll be fully satisfied. God has the sponge. It works a lot better than anything this world can offer, and it doesn’t cost money. It costs our decision not to try to do by ourselves what is only possible with God.
One last thing I want to share with you is a poem which my Pre-Calculus instructor James Harper suggested to me. It was written by Admiral Jeremiah Denton, a prisoner of war in North Vietnam who underwent terrible torture and despair but emerged clinging for dear life to his faith in God. It is called "La Pieta," and I found this at http://ironacresnow.blogspot.com/2009/04/he-is-risen.html
"The soldiers stare, then drift away,
Young John finds nothing to say,
The veil is rent; the deed is done;
And Mary holds her only son.
His limbs grow stiff, the night grows cold,
But naught can lose that mother’s hold,
Her gentle, anguished eyes seem blind,
Who knows what thoughts run through her mind?
Perhaps she thinks of last week’s palms,
With cheering thousands off’ring alms
Or dreams of Cana on the day
She nagged him till she got her way.
Her face shows grief but not despair,
Her head though bowed has faith to spare,
For even now she could suppose
His thorns might somehow yield a rose.
Her life with Him was full of signs
That God writes straight with crooked lines.
Dark clouds can hide the rising sun,
And all seem lost, when all be won!"
The last four lines are particularly important. This is what God did for us: He came to the humblest position, though He belongs in the place of highest glory. He was beaten when He ought to have been praised. He was treated as a criminal when He had done nothing wrong. He underwent what we deserve to undergo. He can turn loss into amazing victory, and He can turn chaos into order. He's been doing that since the beginning of the universe, and He is doing it now.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Sunday, June 6, 2010
The Bride of Christ, and Life Compared to a Snowglobe
THIS WEEK I have a few different really cool things to tell you about. I like to read at least one chapter of the New Testament per day, and lately I've been trying to read in Isaiah and the Psalms more, too. This week I finished through the end of John again, and I wondered what I should do now. Should I read a chapter a day through the rest of the New Testament? I did that not too long ago. Maybe something different would be beneficial. I remembered a suggestion I had seen or heard somewhere: I could make note cards on every chapter of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and maybe later on I could do cards on others. I decided to do this, and I prayed I could find some note cards somewhere.
I found five note cards in a closet in the kitchen, and I have since used them up on the first four chapters of the book of Matthew. I wrote down what was happening every few verses, and I took note of all the references to other places. It is so cool. If you read this blog alot you might know I really enjoy the book of Isaiah because I've seen a few particularly exciting prophecies in there which I have observed to have come true in Jesus' life. Looking in these references, even in the first four chapters of Matthew, I saw prophecies in Isaiah as well as in Hosea, Micah, and Jeremiah, places I don't look into nearly as often. I particularly like Micah 5:2 "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Though you are little among the thousands of Judah, Yet out of you shall come forth to Me the One to be Ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from old, from everlasting." This is referenced in Matthew 2:5-6. It's amazing that Jesus was born exactly where it was predicted He would be born - in a prophecy that was made hundreds of years beforehand! It's also amazing that God tends to choose such little and low things to bring about greatness. He picked little Bethlehem for God-in-Man to enter the world. He chose fishermen for several of His disciples. He chose the sick and demon-possessed as those whose lives, having been transformed by Him, would spread the news of His great love and mercy. God has been healing people since long before He walked the earth in Jesus.
Besides the prophecies, I also observed commandments which Jesus quoted in defense against the evil one's attempts to tempt Him for 40 days in Matthew 4:1-11. These were found in Deuteronomy 6 and 8. Jesus gives us an example in how to resist the evil one. We're supposed to cling to what God says in His Word, what He has shown us to be true and what He has promised to do. He wants us to obey His commandments, and the best way to do that is to know them AND to make sure we understand them. If we cling to Him and don't get deceived nor confused, the evil one is like "I can't trick this kid," and he does not succeed.
I hope and pray that I may get a big stack of note cards to use. Taking notes is fun and it helps me to look more deeply into God's Word.
Okay, so another cool thing happened. Last week I was blogging pretty late and I finished around 11 o'clock. You remember I was talking about Revelation 21 and the Bride of Christ imagery and the fact that God promises to take away all the pain one day when He gathers all His faithful children to His kingdom. That same evening my sweetiful cousin Rina was dreaming a very important dream. Please go to this URL before you continue reading, or you probably won't understand what I 'm so excited about. http://zee-em-sea.blogspot.com/ . Look under "The Wedding."
I tried earlier this week to explain verbally what the big deal was, but I'm afraid I might not have been completely successful. I'll try harder. I am amazed because in the same evening that I was typing about the Bride of Christ, which is the body of the redeemed brought into God's kingdom to worship and serve Him forever, Rinabean was dreaming about the same thing. She dreamed about this bride who was ruining her own happy time by wandering around outside, and who blamed her husband for not coming and getting her. But the groom came and held her and assured her he had never left, and she realized that it was her own fault, and that he loved her anyway. His love for her and her love for him made her beautiful.
I think God is showing both of us this important idea at the same time, so we can help each other understand it. God wants to be first in our hearts - everyone's hearts! - on the Throne of your Heart, as I've heard it before. He wants to hold us each tightly and bring us close to Him, and He will cast away all of our griefs and fill us up so full of joy that we will not ever have to worry about anything, because now we don't have to deal with things dying and breaking. With God it's all permanent. He wants us to seek what is permanent.
He knows everything about us, and He knows we do really dumb things. To quote my dear Rinabean, "And Jesus doesn't not demand perfection from us. He knows every part of us and still He loves us. He never wants us to sin, but He knew that it would be inevitable - that's why He offered Himself as a sacrifice for us. He loved the world that much (John 3:16)...and not to condemn the world, but so that you could be saved (John 3:17)."
Just to hold us in His arms and assure us, just to make us His again and teach us and comfort us, He came to us through tribulation and pain and death. He did it to pull us out of the pit we were unknowingly getting ourselves stuck into, so that anybody who will trust Him can be with Him forver.
In that same passage from last week, Revelation 21:1-5, the writer reports what God said once the old was all torn down and the New Jerusalem was prepared. "Behold, I am making all things new." In redeeming all His children and in sanctifying us, He is making all things new. In his book "The Applause of Heaven" Max Lucado discusses the fact that many things which were delightful to him once have now grown old and have begun to die, and he can't do anything to change it. It's so amazing that we can be sure that God is going to restore - not the things we fondly remember now - but "He will restore the vigor. He will restore the energy. He will restore the hope. He will restore the soul." He is not about to gather up all the things in the world that are fading and restore them to youth, but He is about to take us to a place where everything is new and fresh and eternal and doesn't get old. Lucado writes, "When you see how this world grows stooped and weary and then read of a home where everything is made new, tell me, doesn't that make you want to go home?" The violence and tedious treacherousness of the world makes me sure that I do not want to stay here forever, and yes, when I'm all done here it will be good to go home.
One night this week I was sitting on my bed about to go to sleep, and I was unexpectedly struck by shock at how fast it is all going to go away. I listened to my brother's radio playing in his room and the air blowing in the air conditioner, and I looked around at the walls and ceilings, and I could not shake the awareness that this is not going to last very long. I am at the end of my junior year in high school, and I know things won't stay quite like this for very long. I almost cried. I thanked God for reminding me of the brevity and soon I was trying to sleep, imagining that I was really forty and that I was visiting my old bed that I had when I was sixteen, one of many nights that I always wish I could come back to. I woke up sixteen.
It's true, we don't belong here. We're going somewhere else. And it's true that what seems new and young now is going to get old. Sometimes I wish I could stay here looking out my window at the trees and birds and spiders and plumbagos and never leave. Sometimes I wish I always had another year left in high school. I wish I was nine and ten with Rina forming clubs that would last one day and playing games that would last for weeks. I wish I could stay here in the months of my first date with Will, and Prom, and my parents' twentieth anniversary. But every day I'm leaving, and God's taking us each somewhere else, somewhere amazing, just not right here and right now anymore.
That's good. Can't stay here forever. But it really sets me straight and makes me realize again that what matters most lasts longest. We're to use our time here to grow closer to God and to advance His kingdom, and then when we're done we can be closer to Him han ever, and we can actually sit forver in His kingdom where everything is always new.
Okay, so last night I was again sitting on my bed before sleeping, preparing to say my prayer for the night, and I picked up this snowglobe that Will got me from Seaworld. It's a very pretty thing with a killer whale perched on a green wave, and shattery-looking glass on the base, and blue-green iradescent sparkles which dance beautifully in the water. So I turned it over and put my eyes very close to the top to watch the sparles fall.
"Is life like a snowglobe?" I asked Jesus right then. He made me understand a few things. He knows I love metaphors. When everything in the world is recent and young and fresh, then the sparkles are newly falling. It's beautiful, and you don't really want it to stop. I thanked God for giving me a good memory for preserving things, as I watched the sparkles descend away from me. As things get older and wrinkle and move aside, then the sparkles have settled. Still pretty, but not as twinkling and sweet. I observed that with God the wonder doesn't have to fade. I get to shake up the snowglobe every day because His mercies are new every morning. He is consistently and persistently amazing. God and all the things God does are never replaced and they never change, get they are always new becuase they never decay. It's eternal.
I'm glad that at the end of my life, having watched a million happy sparkles dance down through the water, I don't have to set the snowglobe down while I see all the sparkles settled and faded on the ground. When I'm all the way done here, I can turn them over one last time and watch how God will spin them forever. Sparkles don't settle in Heaven. The wonder will then never have to fade away.
I found five note cards in a closet in the kitchen, and I have since used them up on the first four chapters of the book of Matthew. I wrote down what was happening every few verses, and I took note of all the references to other places. It is so cool. If you read this blog alot you might know I really enjoy the book of Isaiah because I've seen a few particularly exciting prophecies in there which I have observed to have come true in Jesus' life. Looking in these references, even in the first four chapters of Matthew, I saw prophecies in Isaiah as well as in Hosea, Micah, and Jeremiah, places I don't look into nearly as often. I particularly like Micah 5:2 "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Though you are little among the thousands of Judah, Yet out of you shall come forth to Me the One to be Ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from old, from everlasting." This is referenced in Matthew 2:5-6. It's amazing that Jesus was born exactly where it was predicted He would be born - in a prophecy that was made hundreds of years beforehand! It's also amazing that God tends to choose such little and low things to bring about greatness. He picked little Bethlehem for God-in-Man to enter the world. He chose fishermen for several of His disciples. He chose the sick and demon-possessed as those whose lives, having been transformed by Him, would spread the news of His great love and mercy. God has been healing people since long before He walked the earth in Jesus.
Besides the prophecies, I also observed commandments which Jesus quoted in defense against the evil one's attempts to tempt Him for 40 days in Matthew 4:1-11. These were found in Deuteronomy 6 and 8. Jesus gives us an example in how to resist the evil one. We're supposed to cling to what God says in His Word, what He has shown us to be true and what He has promised to do. He wants us to obey His commandments, and the best way to do that is to know them AND to make sure we understand them. If we cling to Him and don't get deceived nor confused, the evil one is like "I can't trick this kid," and he does not succeed.
I hope and pray that I may get a big stack of note cards to use. Taking notes is fun and it helps me to look more deeply into God's Word.
Okay, so another cool thing happened. Last week I was blogging pretty late and I finished around 11 o'clock. You remember I was talking about Revelation 21 and the Bride of Christ imagery and the fact that God promises to take away all the pain one day when He gathers all His faithful children to His kingdom. That same evening my sweetiful cousin Rina was dreaming a very important dream. Please go to this URL before you continue reading, or you probably won't understand what I 'm so excited about. http://zee-em-sea.blogspot.com/ . Look under "The Wedding."
I tried earlier this week to explain verbally what the big deal was, but I'm afraid I might not have been completely successful. I'll try harder. I am amazed because in the same evening that I was typing about the Bride of Christ, which is the body of the redeemed brought into God's kingdom to worship and serve Him forever, Rinabean was dreaming about the same thing. She dreamed about this bride who was ruining her own happy time by wandering around outside, and who blamed her husband for not coming and getting her. But the groom came and held her and assured her he had never left, and she realized that it was her own fault, and that he loved her anyway. His love for her and her love for him made her beautiful.
I think God is showing both of us this important idea at the same time, so we can help each other understand it. God wants to be first in our hearts - everyone's hearts! - on the Throne of your Heart, as I've heard it before. He wants to hold us each tightly and bring us close to Him, and He will cast away all of our griefs and fill us up so full of joy that we will not ever have to worry about anything, because now we don't have to deal with things dying and breaking. With God it's all permanent. He wants us to seek what is permanent.
He knows everything about us, and He knows we do really dumb things. To quote my dear Rinabean, "And Jesus doesn't not demand perfection from us. He knows every part of us and still He loves us. He never wants us to sin, but He knew that it would be inevitable - that's why He offered Himself as a sacrifice for us. He loved the world that much (John 3:16)...and not to condemn the world, but so that you could be saved (John 3:17)."
Just to hold us in His arms and assure us, just to make us His again and teach us and comfort us, He came to us through tribulation and pain and death. He did it to pull us out of the pit we were unknowingly getting ourselves stuck into, so that anybody who will trust Him can be with Him forver.
In that same passage from last week, Revelation 21:1-5, the writer reports what God said once the old was all torn down and the New Jerusalem was prepared. "Behold, I am making all things new." In redeeming all His children and in sanctifying us, He is making all things new. In his book "The Applause of Heaven" Max Lucado discusses the fact that many things which were delightful to him once have now grown old and have begun to die, and he can't do anything to change it. It's so amazing that we can be sure that God is going to restore - not the things we fondly remember now - but "He will restore the vigor. He will restore the energy. He will restore the hope. He will restore the soul." He is not about to gather up all the things in the world that are fading and restore them to youth, but He is about to take us to a place where everything is new and fresh and eternal and doesn't get old. Lucado writes, "When you see how this world grows stooped and weary and then read of a home where everything is made new, tell me, doesn't that make you want to go home?" The violence and tedious treacherousness of the world makes me sure that I do not want to stay here forever, and yes, when I'm all done here it will be good to go home.
One night this week I was sitting on my bed about to go to sleep, and I was unexpectedly struck by shock at how fast it is all going to go away. I listened to my brother's radio playing in his room and the air blowing in the air conditioner, and I looked around at the walls and ceilings, and I could not shake the awareness that this is not going to last very long. I am at the end of my junior year in high school, and I know things won't stay quite like this for very long. I almost cried. I thanked God for reminding me of the brevity and soon I was trying to sleep, imagining that I was really forty and that I was visiting my old bed that I had when I was sixteen, one of many nights that I always wish I could come back to. I woke up sixteen.
It's true, we don't belong here. We're going somewhere else. And it's true that what seems new and young now is going to get old. Sometimes I wish I could stay here looking out my window at the trees and birds and spiders and plumbagos and never leave. Sometimes I wish I always had another year left in high school. I wish I was nine and ten with Rina forming clubs that would last one day and playing games that would last for weeks. I wish I could stay here in the months of my first date with Will, and Prom, and my parents' twentieth anniversary. But every day I'm leaving, and God's taking us each somewhere else, somewhere amazing, just not right here and right now anymore.
That's good. Can't stay here forever. But it really sets me straight and makes me realize again that what matters most lasts longest. We're to use our time here to grow closer to God and to advance His kingdom, and then when we're done we can be closer to Him han ever, and we can actually sit forver in His kingdom where everything is always new.
Okay, so last night I was again sitting on my bed before sleeping, preparing to say my prayer for the night, and I picked up this snowglobe that Will got me from Seaworld. It's a very pretty thing with a killer whale perched on a green wave, and shattery-looking glass on the base, and blue-green iradescent sparkles which dance beautifully in the water. So I turned it over and put my eyes very close to the top to watch the sparles fall.
"Is life like a snowglobe?" I asked Jesus right then. He made me understand a few things. He knows I love metaphors. When everything in the world is recent and young and fresh, then the sparkles are newly falling. It's beautiful, and you don't really want it to stop. I thanked God for giving me a good memory for preserving things, as I watched the sparkles descend away from me. As things get older and wrinkle and move aside, then the sparkles have settled. Still pretty, but not as twinkling and sweet. I observed that with God the wonder doesn't have to fade. I get to shake up the snowglobe every day because His mercies are new every morning. He is consistently and persistently amazing. God and all the things God does are never replaced and they never change, get they are always new becuase they never decay. It's eternal.
I'm glad that at the end of my life, having watched a million happy sparkles dance down through the water, I don't have to set the snowglobe down while I see all the sparkles settled and faded on the ground. When I'm all the way done here, I can turn them over one last time and watch how God will spin them forever. Sparkles don't settle in Heaven. The wonder will then never have to fade away.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
God's Truly Amazing Love
THIS WEEK was very cool. God is awesome.
Last week I said I'd be looking into the Word even more. Well I did, and I saw some really, really cool stuff. I looked into the first ten chapters of Isaiah - I really like Isaiah because the fact of the prophecies about the Messiah really fascinates me. Do you know that the prediction of a virgin giving birth to a Holy Child already appears in only the seventh chapter? Isaiah 7:14 "Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel." "Immauel" is a word which translates "God-With-Us." It is one of my favorite ways to think about Jesus, because that's just what He is - God coming to us, staying with us, because He cares that much about us. Whoa.
I looked into John 12 and read it twice. I noticed how well I could see who Jesus is when I thought about the events in that chapter in particular. He has just resurrected Lazarus, brother of Mary and Martha, and they're having dinner. Mary, in all her famous devotion, pours a whole pound of spikenard oil (very, very expensive) on Jesus' feet and washes Him with her tears. She does this because she knows who He is: He is a King, worthy of such honor; He is soon to be killed, so she honors His body by annointing it with oil. In the next few days the Jews of Jerusalem praised Him as He rode on a young donkey through their street, laying down palm branches in His path. Left and right people are honoring Him as a great King, and He is dead set on getting to Jerusalem because He knows it is almost time for Him to be killed there. He is not going anywhere else. He is going straight to where He knows He will be killed because He knows that that will fulfill what He has been sent to do: die to save the world.
This exact event, His being hailed as King while riding on a donkey's colt, was predicted in Zechariah 9:9. The part that really got my attention was John 12:16 "His disciples did not understand these things at first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written about Him and that they had done these things to Him." It's so amazing the way God works. You know the disciples weren't setting everything up to match the prophecies: they were just coming true! And they wouldn't notice until God would open their understanding later, making them, and us, all the more sure of who He is.
The next part is also really amazing. A group of Greeks had come and wanted to see Him, but however much He would have liked to teach them, He would not stop. "[23]But He answered them, saying, "The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. [24] Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it prodces much grain." He simply said that it was time for Him to be glorified, that is, to fulfill His purpose through death and be glorified in resurrection. He affirms that it is necessary to lay down oneself, in His case through death, in order to produce a wonderful result. A moment later, we see a demonstration of both His devotion to the fulfillment of God's plan and of His relationship with God. "[27] 'Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? But for this purpose I came to this hour. [28] Father, glorify Your name.' Then a voice came from heaven, saying 'I have glorified it and will glorify it again.'" I suggest you read through John chapter 12. There's just so much about Jesus' identity there. He is a King, He is the long-awaited Messiah, He is the Savior of the world who would not by any means delay doing what He knew He must do to save me and you. Knowing Jesus more makes me love Him more.
I saw a beautiful miracle this week. Pastor Ryan and Shelby finally got married! That was a special wedding. It was very sincere, very permanent, and very holy, just like a wedding should be. It was not an ordinary ceremony. The Holy Spirit was all over it: you could tell that these two do not only want to spend their lives together, they want to spend their lives worshipping God together. That's the best kind of marriage, one that's all about God. That's the kind of wedding worth waiting for, as long as God wants you to wait for the right person. That, right there, is a couple that was always supposed to be together, and I know that they will glorify God in amazing ways together. When they kissed, both of them had their first kiss ever. That is so cool.
Today I finished reading a REALLY cool book by Max Lucado: "The Applause of Heaven." It centers around the beatitudes and the ways God responds to people. I strongly suggest you go find it and read it, or I could loan it to you.
Anyway, close to the end Lucado discusses a part of Revelation, how the Holy City is as beautiful as a bride. That could not have caught my attention so well any other day than the day after I saw Shelby Reeder get married. It's in the second to last chapter of the Bible, Revelation 21:1-5 "[1] Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also, there was no more sea. [2] Then I, John, saw the holy city New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. [3] And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, 'Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. [4] And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.' [5] Then He who sat on the throne said, 'Behold, I make all things new.' And He said to me, 'Write, for these words are true and faithful.'"
When Ryan performed his vows to Shelby, he promised to love her like Christ loves the church. Look at the one couple you know who is most in love. That's not the newest couple who are still gazing foolishly at each other without looking to see whether any spiritual growth can be accomplished from being with that person. It's probably the couple who is still together after quite a while and who puts what God wants absolutely first. That man loves that woman the way Jesus loves us. You see, He doesn't just like us. He doesn't just feel like it would be better for everyone if we were redeemed and if we got to stay with Him forever. He wouldn't die for anything less than the greatest love. John 13:1 "Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end."
What? Whoa. God loves me that much? I will never get my mind around it, but He does! More than once the body of believers, the mass of all Jesus' followers ever, is described as the bride of Christ. He loves us, He loves us, He loves us. Look at how He cried in Gethsemane. He was very scared. For a moment He wanted out, but He knew that it was much more important for this task to be accompished, however painful, than for Him to be delivered from His pain. He went through with it, and I'm forever glad He did! Look at this out of Max Lucado's book. It's very touching. "John says that someday God will wipe away your tears. The same hands that stretched the heavens will touch your cheeks. The same hands that formed the mountains will caress your face. The same hands that curled in agony as the Roman spike cut through will someday cup you face and brush away your tears. Forever."
It's a very hard world. Sometimes it's a horrible experience living here. Bodies start hurting, happiness turns grey, we hear stories of absolutely horrible things happening and wonder what in the world is going on. Try Psalm 37. Evildoers will get what they deserve, and God will not abandon the righteous. Ever. Psalm 37:18 says "The LORD knows the days of the upright, and their inheritance shall be forever." Where is God? That's what everybody asks at some point. And He's never left. We're His dear ones. I think of the sweet pink face of my little cousin Molly when I imagine tears being brushed from a child's face. Right here God is saying that there will come a day when He will toss this whole mess out and take us home where we belong. He'll make us forget all the horror and anguish and brokenness as He heals us and holds us forever and never lets us go. In a place that's as perfectly beautiful as a bride.
A few minutes before I started typing this blog I looked into my devotional book. The reference was Ezekiel 34. Go read it. Seriously, don't continue until you've read it. It's really cool.
Okay, have you read it? Look: Ezekiel 34:11-16 "[11]For thus says the Lord GOD: 'Indeed I Myself will search for My sheep and seek them out. [12]As a shepherd seeks out his flock on the day he is among his scattered sheep, so will I seek out My sheep and deliver them from all the places where they were scattered on a cloudy and dark day. [13] And I will bring them out fro mthe peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them to their own land; I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, in the valleys and in all the inhabited places of the country. [14] I will feed them in good pasture, and their fold shall be on the high mountains of Israel. [15] I will feed my flock, and I will make them lie down,' says the Lord GOD. [16] 'I will seek what was lost and bring back what was driven away, bind up the broken and strengthen what was sick; but I will destroy the fat and the strong, and feed them in judgment.'" Compare this whole chapter to Luke 15:4-7.
Old Testament, New Testament, God is speaking these words of love to tell us that He cares what happens to His own. God wants us to be okay. He will let pain hit us sometimes, but for good reasons. He does answer prayer, just not how we expect, and often not in ways that we understand or even notice. We pray for healing, and He might take the sick person away and let him be healed in heaven with Him. We pray for an answer, and He might tell us to wait a while and trust Him.
But you see, that's all He wants is for us to love Him, honor Him and obey Him for better or worse, in sickness or in health. But even in death we will not part from Him.
This makes me want to be with God. The less a person clings to this world, the more joy he has because his happiness comes from Christ, not from this world full of dying things. Each one of us is going to be in this world as long as He wants us to be, and I know I'll be out of here the minute He decides I'm done doing whatever it may be that He has planned. It might hurt, but it's His plan, so it's good. And in the end, there won't be any more pain for any of us who have trusted in Him. That's awesome. Praise God.
Last week I said I'd be looking into the Word even more. Well I did, and I saw some really, really cool stuff. I looked into the first ten chapters of Isaiah - I really like Isaiah because the fact of the prophecies about the Messiah really fascinates me. Do you know that the prediction of a virgin giving birth to a Holy Child already appears in only the seventh chapter? Isaiah 7:14 "Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel." "Immauel" is a word which translates "God-With-Us." It is one of my favorite ways to think about Jesus, because that's just what He is - God coming to us, staying with us, because He cares that much about us. Whoa.
I looked into John 12 and read it twice. I noticed how well I could see who Jesus is when I thought about the events in that chapter in particular. He has just resurrected Lazarus, brother of Mary and Martha, and they're having dinner. Mary, in all her famous devotion, pours a whole pound of spikenard oil (very, very expensive) on Jesus' feet and washes Him with her tears. She does this because she knows who He is: He is a King, worthy of such honor; He is soon to be killed, so she honors His body by annointing it with oil. In the next few days the Jews of Jerusalem praised Him as He rode on a young donkey through their street, laying down palm branches in His path. Left and right people are honoring Him as a great King, and He is dead set on getting to Jerusalem because He knows it is almost time for Him to be killed there. He is not going anywhere else. He is going straight to where He knows He will be killed because He knows that that will fulfill what He has been sent to do: die to save the world.
This exact event, His being hailed as King while riding on a donkey's colt, was predicted in Zechariah 9:9. The part that really got my attention was John 12:16 "His disciples did not understand these things at first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written about Him and that they had done these things to Him." It's so amazing the way God works. You know the disciples weren't setting everything up to match the prophecies: they were just coming true! And they wouldn't notice until God would open their understanding later, making them, and us, all the more sure of who He is.
The next part is also really amazing. A group of Greeks had come and wanted to see Him, but however much He would have liked to teach them, He would not stop. "[23]But He answered them, saying, "The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. [24] Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it prodces much grain." He simply said that it was time for Him to be glorified, that is, to fulfill His purpose through death and be glorified in resurrection. He affirms that it is necessary to lay down oneself, in His case through death, in order to produce a wonderful result. A moment later, we see a demonstration of both His devotion to the fulfillment of God's plan and of His relationship with God. "[27] 'Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? But for this purpose I came to this hour. [28] Father, glorify Your name.' Then a voice came from heaven, saying 'I have glorified it and will glorify it again.'" I suggest you read through John chapter 12. There's just so much about Jesus' identity there. He is a King, He is the long-awaited Messiah, He is the Savior of the world who would not by any means delay doing what He knew He must do to save me and you. Knowing Jesus more makes me love Him more.
I saw a beautiful miracle this week. Pastor Ryan and Shelby finally got married! That was a special wedding. It was very sincere, very permanent, and very holy, just like a wedding should be. It was not an ordinary ceremony. The Holy Spirit was all over it: you could tell that these two do not only want to spend their lives together, they want to spend their lives worshipping God together. That's the best kind of marriage, one that's all about God. That's the kind of wedding worth waiting for, as long as God wants you to wait for the right person. That, right there, is a couple that was always supposed to be together, and I know that they will glorify God in amazing ways together. When they kissed, both of them had their first kiss ever. That is so cool.
Today I finished reading a REALLY cool book by Max Lucado: "The Applause of Heaven." It centers around the beatitudes and the ways God responds to people. I strongly suggest you go find it and read it, or I could loan it to you.
Anyway, close to the end Lucado discusses a part of Revelation, how the Holy City is as beautiful as a bride. That could not have caught my attention so well any other day than the day after I saw Shelby Reeder get married. It's in the second to last chapter of the Bible, Revelation 21:1-5 "[1] Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also, there was no more sea. [2] Then I, John, saw the holy city New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. [3] And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, 'Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. [4] And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.' [5] Then He who sat on the throne said, 'Behold, I make all things new.' And He said to me, 'Write, for these words are true and faithful.'"
When Ryan performed his vows to Shelby, he promised to love her like Christ loves the church. Look at the one couple you know who is most in love. That's not the newest couple who are still gazing foolishly at each other without looking to see whether any spiritual growth can be accomplished from being with that person. It's probably the couple who is still together after quite a while and who puts what God wants absolutely first. That man loves that woman the way Jesus loves us. You see, He doesn't just like us. He doesn't just feel like it would be better for everyone if we were redeemed and if we got to stay with Him forever. He wouldn't die for anything less than the greatest love. John 13:1 "Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end."
What? Whoa. God loves me that much? I will never get my mind around it, but He does! More than once the body of believers, the mass of all Jesus' followers ever, is described as the bride of Christ. He loves us, He loves us, He loves us. Look at how He cried in Gethsemane. He was very scared. For a moment He wanted out, but He knew that it was much more important for this task to be accompished, however painful, than for Him to be delivered from His pain. He went through with it, and I'm forever glad He did! Look at this out of Max Lucado's book. It's very touching. "John says that someday God will wipe away your tears. The same hands that stretched the heavens will touch your cheeks. The same hands that formed the mountains will caress your face. The same hands that curled in agony as the Roman spike cut through will someday cup you face and brush away your tears. Forever."
It's a very hard world. Sometimes it's a horrible experience living here. Bodies start hurting, happiness turns grey, we hear stories of absolutely horrible things happening and wonder what in the world is going on. Try Psalm 37. Evildoers will get what they deserve, and God will not abandon the righteous. Ever. Psalm 37:18 says "The LORD knows the days of the upright, and their inheritance shall be forever." Where is God? That's what everybody asks at some point. And He's never left. We're His dear ones. I think of the sweet pink face of my little cousin Molly when I imagine tears being brushed from a child's face. Right here God is saying that there will come a day when He will toss this whole mess out and take us home where we belong. He'll make us forget all the horror and anguish and brokenness as He heals us and holds us forever and never lets us go. In a place that's as perfectly beautiful as a bride.
A few minutes before I started typing this blog I looked into my devotional book. The reference was Ezekiel 34. Go read it. Seriously, don't continue until you've read it. It's really cool.
Okay, have you read it? Look: Ezekiel 34:11-16 "[11]For thus says the Lord GOD: 'Indeed I Myself will search for My sheep and seek them out. [12]As a shepherd seeks out his flock on the day he is among his scattered sheep, so will I seek out My sheep and deliver them from all the places where they were scattered on a cloudy and dark day. [13] And I will bring them out fro mthe peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them to their own land; I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, in the valleys and in all the inhabited places of the country. [14] I will feed them in good pasture, and their fold shall be on the high mountains of Israel. [15] I will feed my flock, and I will make them lie down,' says the Lord GOD. [16] 'I will seek what was lost and bring back what was driven away, bind up the broken and strengthen what was sick; but I will destroy the fat and the strong, and feed them in judgment.'" Compare this whole chapter to Luke 15:4-7.
Old Testament, New Testament, God is speaking these words of love to tell us that He cares what happens to His own. God wants us to be okay. He will let pain hit us sometimes, but for good reasons. He does answer prayer, just not how we expect, and often not in ways that we understand or even notice. We pray for healing, and He might take the sick person away and let him be healed in heaven with Him. We pray for an answer, and He might tell us to wait a while and trust Him.
But you see, that's all He wants is for us to love Him, honor Him and obey Him for better or worse, in sickness or in health. But even in death we will not part from Him.
This makes me want to be with God. The less a person clings to this world, the more joy he has because his happiness comes from Christ, not from this world full of dying things. Each one of us is going to be in this world as long as He wants us to be, and I know I'll be out of here the minute He decides I'm done doing whatever it may be that He has planned. It might hurt, but it's His plan, so it's good. And in the end, there won't be any more pain for any of us who have trusted in Him. That's awesome. Praise God.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Spiritual Growth
THIS WEEK has been amazing. Okay, so one evening I was listening to 88. 1 "The Promise" on my clock radio. I heard a song whose chorus was composed of the last two verses of Psalm 139, one of my very favorite places I've seen so far in the Bible. Those lines go "[23] Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my thoughts; [24] And see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." Taken line by line this is a request for God to look through every part of our hearts and reveal what still needs to change, what needs correction, so that changes can be made and we grow closer to God because we've put away the things He doesn't like. I love this. It's one of a few places in the Bible that I just love referring to because it speaks right to me. God speaks to us through His Word, the Bible. When I read this I know He's talking to me because this is exactly what I want: I want Him to keep changing me and showing me what I need to quit, and what I need to start, so I can ask for His help in undergoing changes.
Okay, now get this. Listening to that song reminded me of these words, and the next day I was praying them. Then I cracked open my devotional book, and can you guess what Bible reference was attached to the story for that Friday? Try to guess. It was Psalm 139. This is one way I've noticed God gets my attention: I'll have a specific verse of chapter on my mind, or I'll be tied up with one particular concern, and He'll refer me right to the place, whether or not I've scene the verse much before,in that devotional book.
I suggest you go read Psalm 139. It's all about how well God knows us and how carefully He watches us, how we love to honor Him and hate to dishonor Him, and how we long for Him to correct us so we can please Him better. And the more I think about it, the more I realize that is the prayer of my heart.
This week I think He's answering that prayer by challenging me to come know Him better. The last few weeks I've been talking about what it means to pursue His kingdom and how amazing it is that He wants us so much. You know, He tells us to pursue Him because He wants us to love Him back. That's what He's teaching me this week: I am supposed to love God more than I love anything or anyone else in the world. Everything in my life must revolve around Him, or else it all falls apart. I again heard Pastor Ryan's story about himself and his fiance Shelby. I covered this before a few months ago (See "On the Throne of your Heart"). Ryan had been engaged to Shelby for a few months and he didn't have any peace about it. So despite how much it hurt, he broke off the engagement. He was having tremendous trouble moving on, so one night God told him simply "She is on the throne of your heart." God told him that he had made Shelby an idol, and he couldn't have peace marrying an idol. So he let go of Shelby completely to pursue God, and a few months later God revealed to him that he should marry Shelby. He had taken her off the throne. They will be married next Saturday, praise God!
This gave me a good reminder that absolutely nothing and nobody ever needs to be nearly as important to me as God. That doesn't mean attending church diligently or spending time with Christian company all the time - that's necessary, but that's not what it means to love God. Loving God is pursuing Him, putting Him first, giving up what I want in favor of what He wants. It's wanting Him more, and wanting to want Him more every day. It's finding my satisfaction and delight in Him and nowhere else, because anything else is a foundation of sand (Matthew 7:24-29) and it fails. He won't share with anyone either: I can't have part of me or even most of me surrendered to what He wants and not all of me. That's like having only part of your house founded on rock and part on the sand. It still falls down. It doesn't work. God designed loving Him to be all, or nothing. He even put that pattern into the Christian faith He invented: You can't have Jesus as the only way to God AND some other ways being acceptable. It's Jesus alone, or it's no Jesus at all, not Jesus and Buddha and somebody else.
So God wants us to love Him. He is jealous for our love, meaning that He doesn't want to share with anyone. After all, He deserves it all. That doesn't mean we don't love anyone or care about anything. It mean we love God so much that nothing else matters nearly AS MUCH. When we love Him, He actually teaches us to love others, even our enemies, as He loves them.
And because I love God, I'm supposed to grow spiritually. I am definitely not supposed to just suck up information from church and other sources and never act on it. I'm supposed to demonstrate growth: check out 2 Peter 1:4-9 (Pastor Russ discussed this passage this morning, and guess what? It was referenced in my devotional book today. God has my attention). "[4] by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the diving nature, having escaped the corruption which it in the world through lust. [5] But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, [6] to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverence, to perseverence godliness, [7] to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. [8] For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. [9] For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins." One thing should follow another: when we have faith we should obtain virtue, and so on, and we are supposed to increase in these things. It shows growth. But look at the last two verses: If we do have these characteristics and they increase in us, then our knowledge about Jesus is effective and productive. If we don't have these characteristics increasing in us, it's like a room full of wonderful books that are never opened. No matter how many books you collect, they are useless if you just let them collect dust and never take them out to read or teach from. I'm not talking about the importance of reading your Bible - that's really important - I'm talking about what you do with what you've learned. Do you realize God's talking to you through that Bible? He talks to me and He shows me important things. What I've learned this week is that I want to experience God more. I want to hear Him more clearly when He talks to me and pay attention when He shows me something. This week I'm really going to be getting into this Bible, looking into the Gospels as well as places I haven't already looked, because God's everywhere in there. From Genesis to Revelation, He's saying something great.
I want to experience God's presence in a way that I haven't done before. I'm gonna set my eyes on the eternal and stare at what's true. Look at 2 Corinthians 3:18. "But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord." Those are some major words. It means that as we look into God - His Word, His actions, His nature - with the veil, our sinful tendency, taken off, we are at once both learning about His glory and seeing it manifest itself in our own nature as He transforms us. Information, the things we learn when we listen to God and to other Christians, must turn into transformation in order to bring about any good. And because of God's Spirit, given to us to help us grow spiritually and resist temptations daily, we become more and more like Jesus. That is what it means to grow, and that is what God wants us to do. He wants to lead us to spiritual maturity. Spiritually mature people are very humble, and they look alot like Jesus. They understand that they will never be done growing, and I hope that's where I get.
Okay, thank you for reading! I have enjoyed blogging. God bless, and may you learn something wonderful from Him this week. He's saying something good. Please post any comments or ideas or notes that you want to!
Okay, now get this. Listening to that song reminded me of these words, and the next day I was praying them. Then I cracked open my devotional book, and can you guess what Bible reference was attached to the story for that Friday? Try to guess. It was Psalm 139. This is one way I've noticed God gets my attention: I'll have a specific verse of chapter on my mind, or I'll be tied up with one particular concern, and He'll refer me right to the place, whether or not I've scene the verse much before,in that devotional book.
I suggest you go read Psalm 139. It's all about how well God knows us and how carefully He watches us, how we love to honor Him and hate to dishonor Him, and how we long for Him to correct us so we can please Him better. And the more I think about it, the more I realize that is the prayer of my heart.
This week I think He's answering that prayer by challenging me to come know Him better. The last few weeks I've been talking about what it means to pursue His kingdom and how amazing it is that He wants us so much. You know, He tells us to pursue Him because He wants us to love Him back. That's what He's teaching me this week: I am supposed to love God more than I love anything or anyone else in the world. Everything in my life must revolve around Him, or else it all falls apart. I again heard Pastor Ryan's story about himself and his fiance Shelby. I covered this before a few months ago (See "On the Throne of your Heart"). Ryan had been engaged to Shelby for a few months and he didn't have any peace about it. So despite how much it hurt, he broke off the engagement. He was having tremendous trouble moving on, so one night God told him simply "She is on the throne of your heart." God told him that he had made Shelby an idol, and he couldn't have peace marrying an idol. So he let go of Shelby completely to pursue God, and a few months later God revealed to him that he should marry Shelby. He had taken her off the throne. They will be married next Saturday, praise God!
This gave me a good reminder that absolutely nothing and nobody ever needs to be nearly as important to me as God. That doesn't mean attending church diligently or spending time with Christian company all the time - that's necessary, but that's not what it means to love God. Loving God is pursuing Him, putting Him first, giving up what I want in favor of what He wants. It's wanting Him more, and wanting to want Him more every day. It's finding my satisfaction and delight in Him and nowhere else, because anything else is a foundation of sand (Matthew 7:24-29) and it fails. He won't share with anyone either: I can't have part of me or even most of me surrendered to what He wants and not all of me. That's like having only part of your house founded on rock and part on the sand. It still falls down. It doesn't work. God designed loving Him to be all, or nothing. He even put that pattern into the Christian faith He invented: You can't have Jesus as the only way to God AND some other ways being acceptable. It's Jesus alone, or it's no Jesus at all, not Jesus and Buddha and somebody else.
So God wants us to love Him. He is jealous for our love, meaning that He doesn't want to share with anyone. After all, He deserves it all. That doesn't mean we don't love anyone or care about anything. It mean we love God so much that nothing else matters nearly AS MUCH. When we love Him, He actually teaches us to love others, even our enemies, as He loves them.
And because I love God, I'm supposed to grow spiritually. I am definitely not supposed to just suck up information from church and other sources and never act on it. I'm supposed to demonstrate growth: check out 2 Peter 1:4-9 (Pastor Russ discussed this passage this morning, and guess what? It was referenced in my devotional book today. God has my attention). "[4] by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the diving nature, having escaped the corruption which it in the world through lust. [5] But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, [6] to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverence, to perseverence godliness, [7] to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. [8] For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. [9] For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins." One thing should follow another: when we have faith we should obtain virtue, and so on, and we are supposed to increase in these things. It shows growth. But look at the last two verses: If we do have these characteristics and they increase in us, then our knowledge about Jesus is effective and productive. If we don't have these characteristics increasing in us, it's like a room full of wonderful books that are never opened. No matter how many books you collect, they are useless if you just let them collect dust and never take them out to read or teach from. I'm not talking about the importance of reading your Bible - that's really important - I'm talking about what you do with what you've learned. Do you realize God's talking to you through that Bible? He talks to me and He shows me important things. What I've learned this week is that I want to experience God more. I want to hear Him more clearly when He talks to me and pay attention when He shows me something. This week I'm really going to be getting into this Bible, looking into the Gospels as well as places I haven't already looked, because God's everywhere in there. From Genesis to Revelation, He's saying something great.
I want to experience God's presence in a way that I haven't done before. I'm gonna set my eyes on the eternal and stare at what's true. Look at 2 Corinthians 3:18. "But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord." Those are some major words. It means that as we look into God - His Word, His actions, His nature - with the veil, our sinful tendency, taken off, we are at once both learning about His glory and seeing it manifest itself in our own nature as He transforms us. Information, the things we learn when we listen to God and to other Christians, must turn into transformation in order to bring about any good. And because of God's Spirit, given to us to help us grow spiritually and resist temptations daily, we become more and more like Jesus. That is what it means to grow, and that is what God wants us to do. He wants to lead us to spiritual maturity. Spiritually mature people are very humble, and they look alot like Jesus. They understand that they will never be done growing, and I hope that's where I get.
Okay, thank you for reading! I have enjoyed blogging. God bless, and may you learn something wonderful from Him this week. He's saying something good. Please post any comments or ideas or notes that you want to!
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Wanted
THIS WEEK I had a very interesting experience. On Wednesday I was blessed to be able to go to an event at Southpoint Community Church called "Engage the Spirit." It's a unique situation, quite different from what most people are used to in a Sunday service, because it is a special environment where one can lay everything aside and praise God with no restraints. We sing loud, we pray big, and a person is free to sit, stand, kneel, walk around, whatever he feels inclined to do.
I had been to Engage the Spirit once before. I asked God to help me to put everything aside and really draw near to Him this Wednesday, and it turned out to be a wonderful experience.
We sang for what felt like maybe twenty-five minutes, but I looked at my phone and discovered I had actually been there for forty minutes. It's very interesting - time really flies in there. When we had sung for that while, we listened to what Pastor Russ had to say. He was not giving a sermon, but he was sharing with us something very important: the fact that God had chosen each one of us as His own, His children. He is neither impressed nor surprised. He doesn't need anyone or anything. How amazing it is that He wants us. He wants me, He wants you, He wants each one of us. It's just astounding. Why on earth would He do that? No reason on earth. The reason is above earth. That's just how God is. He just loves the unloveable. Try to show me another god who can want the useless and support the hopeless. There isn't another one out there.
Engage the Sprit was amazing because it was all about God, and I left there with some new understanding and with a fresh reminder of both His astounding love and His renewing presence. I could not get myself to go to sleep that night until I had written down an image which God showed me while I was listening to what Pastor Russ said. This is what I wrote in my journal:
"At "Engage the Spirit" Night Pastor Russ reminded us about how God chose each one of us as His own. He doesn't need us - He doesn't need anything - and nothing can impress Him. He just wants us. I love belonging to a God who wants me. He redeemed me when I was unpurchaseable. He accepted me when I was unacceptable. He forgave me when I was unforgiveable. These are some of the things Pastor Russ talked about. He said what he was like when God saved him: he was aimless, hopeless, punkish, desperate - and I connected to this because that's what I was when He found me, too. And I'm thinking, if God changed Pastor Russ that much and made him into such a fruitful servant, He can certainly do something with me. And I'm thankful to my God that He loves me, wants me, that He changed me so. I remember what I used to be, and I see what I am now: I am His, and I love it! I love having Him for a Heavenly Father, who picked me! I thanked Him, and He allowed me to find a way to think about His choosing me: He has reached through the whole history of mankind, brushed aside all sins and rejections, shoved off all the tricks of the devil who wants to harm His child, and reached through to me - He grabs me, holds me with a nail-pierced hand. I love God, and I want to love Him more, and more, and more. And more. Forever more, Amen."
I wrote that into my journal by the bluish light of my booklight. I particlularly want to share the part about His reaching through every obstacle to get to me. As I describe this, put your name wherever I have written "I" or "me." God has reached past everything to get to to me, past every sin, past every foolish mistake, past every failure. He has pushed aside the tricks of the devil to show me that He will keep them from harming me. He has continued to reach for me with a nail-pierced hand despite every time I said "I'm more important" or "A little sin is fine." He pushed it all aside and scooped me up the moment I said I'm done saying no, the moment I decided to acknowledge His power over me and decided to follow Him instead of following myself into a trap.
I heard this song on the radio this week: "I Need You to Love me" by Barlow Girl. Here is a website where you can find the lyrics. I suggest you read them. http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/barlowgirl/ineedyoutoloveme.html
Do you realize how much God cares? I'm telling you that you don't. Nobody can wrap his mind around how much our God cares. I've been reading "The Case for a Creator" by Lee Strobel. It's a very wonderful book, by one of my favorite authors. Strobel has recorded his interviews with professors from various fields, measuring the evidence for and against the existence of an Intelligient Designer. I'm not even done reading it, and thus far I've learned that it has been impossible for atheists to propose a theory which satisfactorily explains away the overwhelming amount of evidence for design in the order of the universe and the cause for the beginning of the universe. No matter how you approach it or how far back you go, you cannot successfully remove God from the picture (because God made the picture!). The way physics and chemistry work, human life would not even be possible in the universe if things were even slightly different. Things would change by amounts too large for the mind to understand if we were balanced any differently - if gravity were a little stronger or weaker, or if atoms' stuctures held together differently. You see, it's all been put together in such a way that even many atheists wonder why it all works so well. God is so good.
This week I've felt closer to Him, like more than ever I can tell there is a Heavenly Father-figure listening when I pray, my Lord, my best Friend whose presence puts purpose and meaning into everything.
Don't you think that if God has gone to the trouble of rescuing us from the jaws of death by going there Himself (and coming back!) we should acknowledge that we owe Him our lives? I think so.
Today at church Pastor Russ reminded us about an important lesson we learned a few months ago. In following Jesus, we are called not only to educate ourselves and to gain understanding but also to do things with what we learn. We are supposed to "GO" so that our lives can be "SOWN" for spreading God's Kingdom. Jesus wants us to follow Him and to obey Him. This means that we should imitate His character and His actions of love, humility, healing, kindness, and courage as well as obeying Him when He says "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always even to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:19-20) He definitely knew it would be really difficult. God knows about difficulty. He has seen difficulty on the cross, and in getting His children to come home and love Him. He just wants us to love Him, and to obey Him because we love Him. And sometimes obeying Him gets a little hard. We might be disliked for it, and our faith will be challenged.
He says in Luke 10:3 "Go your way; behold, I send you out as lambs among wolves." There are two kinds of shepherds who will send their sheep over somewhere dangerous: a shepherd who does not care about the sheep, and a shepherd who plans to preserve the sheep and keep him from any harm. Now, we know sheep don't actually go and accomplish missions. But in these verses in which He is telling His servants to GO and share the Gospel and the knowledge of God's love, Jesus is saying that because we love Him and obey Him, and because we trust Him when He promises He will be with us always, we can GO and do things which we might not be immediately comfortable with.
I've been feeling God nearer to me lately. I will trust Him, joy or pain, knowing that He is truthful when He says "I am with you always, even to the end of the age."
Thank you for reading this week. Please post any comments and feel free to share your opinion as well as any miracle or message which God is showing you this week.
I had been to Engage the Spirit once before. I asked God to help me to put everything aside and really draw near to Him this Wednesday, and it turned out to be a wonderful experience.
We sang for what felt like maybe twenty-five minutes, but I looked at my phone and discovered I had actually been there for forty minutes. It's very interesting - time really flies in there. When we had sung for that while, we listened to what Pastor Russ had to say. He was not giving a sermon, but he was sharing with us something very important: the fact that God had chosen each one of us as His own, His children. He is neither impressed nor surprised. He doesn't need anyone or anything. How amazing it is that He wants us. He wants me, He wants you, He wants each one of us. It's just astounding. Why on earth would He do that? No reason on earth. The reason is above earth. That's just how God is. He just loves the unloveable. Try to show me another god who can want the useless and support the hopeless. There isn't another one out there.
Engage the Sprit was amazing because it was all about God, and I left there with some new understanding and with a fresh reminder of both His astounding love and His renewing presence. I could not get myself to go to sleep that night until I had written down an image which God showed me while I was listening to what Pastor Russ said. This is what I wrote in my journal:
"At "Engage the Spirit" Night Pastor Russ reminded us about how God chose each one of us as His own. He doesn't need us - He doesn't need anything - and nothing can impress Him. He just wants us. I love belonging to a God who wants me. He redeemed me when I was unpurchaseable. He accepted me when I was unacceptable. He forgave me when I was unforgiveable. These are some of the things Pastor Russ talked about. He said what he was like when God saved him: he was aimless, hopeless, punkish, desperate - and I connected to this because that's what I was when He found me, too. And I'm thinking, if God changed Pastor Russ that much and made him into such a fruitful servant, He can certainly do something with me. And I'm thankful to my God that He loves me, wants me, that He changed me so. I remember what I used to be, and I see what I am now: I am His, and I love it! I love having Him for a Heavenly Father, who picked me! I thanked Him, and He allowed me to find a way to think about His choosing me: He has reached through the whole history of mankind, brushed aside all sins and rejections, shoved off all the tricks of the devil who wants to harm His child, and reached through to me - He grabs me, holds me with a nail-pierced hand. I love God, and I want to love Him more, and more, and more. And more. Forever more, Amen."
I wrote that into my journal by the bluish light of my booklight. I particlularly want to share the part about His reaching through every obstacle to get to me. As I describe this, put your name wherever I have written "I" or "me." God has reached past everything to get to to me, past every sin, past every foolish mistake, past every failure. He has pushed aside the tricks of the devil to show me that He will keep them from harming me. He has continued to reach for me with a nail-pierced hand despite every time I said "I'm more important" or "A little sin is fine." He pushed it all aside and scooped me up the moment I said I'm done saying no, the moment I decided to acknowledge His power over me and decided to follow Him instead of following myself into a trap.
I heard this song on the radio this week: "I Need You to Love me" by Barlow Girl. Here is a website where you can find the lyrics. I suggest you read them. http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/barlowgirl/ineedyoutoloveme.html
Do you realize how much God cares? I'm telling you that you don't. Nobody can wrap his mind around how much our God cares. I've been reading "The Case for a Creator" by Lee Strobel. It's a very wonderful book, by one of my favorite authors. Strobel has recorded his interviews with professors from various fields, measuring the evidence for and against the existence of an Intelligient Designer. I'm not even done reading it, and thus far I've learned that it has been impossible for atheists to propose a theory which satisfactorily explains away the overwhelming amount of evidence for design in the order of the universe and the cause for the beginning of the universe. No matter how you approach it or how far back you go, you cannot successfully remove God from the picture (because God made the picture!). The way physics and chemistry work, human life would not even be possible in the universe if things were even slightly different. Things would change by amounts too large for the mind to understand if we were balanced any differently - if gravity were a little stronger or weaker, or if atoms' stuctures held together differently. You see, it's all been put together in such a way that even many atheists wonder why it all works so well. God is so good.
This week I've felt closer to Him, like more than ever I can tell there is a Heavenly Father-figure listening when I pray, my Lord, my best Friend whose presence puts purpose and meaning into everything.
Don't you think that if God has gone to the trouble of rescuing us from the jaws of death by going there Himself (and coming back!) we should acknowledge that we owe Him our lives? I think so.
Today at church Pastor Russ reminded us about an important lesson we learned a few months ago. In following Jesus, we are called not only to educate ourselves and to gain understanding but also to do things with what we learn. We are supposed to "GO" so that our lives can be "SOWN" for spreading God's Kingdom. Jesus wants us to follow Him and to obey Him. This means that we should imitate His character and His actions of love, humility, healing, kindness, and courage as well as obeying Him when He says "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always even to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:19-20) He definitely knew it would be really difficult. God knows about difficulty. He has seen difficulty on the cross, and in getting His children to come home and love Him. He just wants us to love Him, and to obey Him because we love Him. And sometimes obeying Him gets a little hard. We might be disliked for it, and our faith will be challenged.
He says in Luke 10:3 "Go your way; behold, I send you out as lambs among wolves." There are two kinds of shepherds who will send their sheep over somewhere dangerous: a shepherd who does not care about the sheep, and a shepherd who plans to preserve the sheep and keep him from any harm. Now, we know sheep don't actually go and accomplish missions. But in these verses in which He is telling His servants to GO and share the Gospel and the knowledge of God's love, Jesus is saying that because we love Him and obey Him, and because we trust Him when He promises He will be with us always, we can GO and do things which we might not be immediately comfortable with.
I've been feeling God nearer to me lately. I will trust Him, joy or pain, knowing that He is truthful when He says "I am with you always, even to the end of the age."
Thank you for reading this week. Please post any comments and feel free to share your opinion as well as any miracle or message which God is showing you this week.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
"Seek the Kingdom of God"
THIS WEEK has been momentous! I've just learned such fascinating things! Let me tell you all about it.
Luke 12:29-31: "[29]And do not seek what you should eat or what you should drink, nor have an anxious mind. [30] For all these things the nations of the world seek after, and your Father knows that you need these things. [31] But seek the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you."
I don't usually open with a Bible passage, but this is where it starts. Youth pastor Ryan cited this Luke 12:31 on Wednesday as he was explaining the importance of avoiding idolatry. This message stuck in my mind because of the very clear definition which was given for idols: "Anything that you could never live without. Something necessary for you to find fulfilment." I learned that anything, even a good thing, can become too important to us so that it becomes an idol. It's not necessarily a statue that you name and worship, like it can save you. It is anything which matters so much to you that it takes up your thoughts and your time. For example, I felt that I spent WAY too much of my thoughts on texting. I just get too excited when my phone makes the little 'plink' sound to tell me I got a text, and I know it. So I resolved to stop texting for one week. On Thursday I'll allow myself to text again.
I made this decision because I have been hit this week by a central theme: devotion. Chapter Nine in The Purple Book, which I look forward to discussing with my Life group next week since we couldn't meet this week, is about Faith and Hope. As I went through the five lessons I learned more about what faith does, and what it means to act on faith. On Wednesday, the same day I heard this message about idols and priorities, the theme of the lesson was "Faith and Obedience," dicussing the relationship between one's faith in God's promises and one's obedience to His commandments. I remember from AP European History the conflict which arose in the church (1500s?) over works and faith. Some said works were important because it demonstrates obedience. Some said faith was important because it is the source of salvation. This used to confuse me because for the life of me I could not tell who was quite right. But check out James 2:15-17 "[15] If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, [16] and one of you says to them, 'Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,' but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? [17] Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead." James says that saying you have faith without actually acting upon it is like telling somebody to be relieved of all of their needs without actually giving them anything to fulfil their needs. So we need faith in Jesus Christ for salvation, to be with God, and works must follow for that faith to be worth anything. Jesus said in John 14:15 "If you love Me, keep My commandments." The reason any person with faith does works is because he loves God. After all, 'works' means actions corresponding to obedience to God.
Back to the passage I began with. Okay, so now I understood the relationship between works and faith. I must obey God's commandments out of faith in His promises. Jesus, God, commands that we "seek the kingdom of God" rather than seek after the little things we have going on in the world. He wants us to "seek the kingdom of God" instead of making idols for ourselves out of the things we think we need, the things we just have to have. He doesn't want us to depend on little things and spend our devotion on idols. But this phrase "seek the kingdom of God" stood out to me because it seems really, really important. It seems to summarize everything God wants us to do. And I needed to understand what it meant.
A little while ago, maybe 50 minutes ago actually, I was laying in my bed in quiet-time mode thinking about this. I decided I needed help understanding everything it means to "seek" God's kingdom. Having been baptized into His name and having resolved to follow Jesus, I needed to know just how to seek His kingdom.
I mean, I knew it meant complete devotion. I already knew it meant a commitment to put Him first and care most about what He wants. Pastor Russ put it this way last week: he said that our desire for God should "eclipse" all other desires. I love that. Everything I want must revolve around wanting God.
So there I was, trying to think of what exactly I should write about this week, and I asked Jesus aloud what it means to pursue His kingdom. I sat there and tried to listen. I felt like He was asking me then whether I would listen when He told me. Aloud I said I would. Then I felt He wanted me to open that Bible and take a look in there. I said okay, though I wasn't sure exactly how I'd find a section to answer my present question. I opened to Luke 21.
I did not understand for a minute exactly how relevant it is. The second time I looked at it I realized that God was opening my understanding in the most unexpected place. Luke 21:1-4 "[1] And He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury, [2] and He saw also a certain poor widow putting in two mites. [3] So He said, 'Truly I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all; [4] for all these out of their abundance have put in offerings for God, but she out of her poverty put in all the livelihood that she had."
I know this story. I've seen it before. I never noticed what this had to do with pursuing God's kingdom. I never noticed what this had to do with real devotion. I found out exactly what it means to pursue the kingdom of God.
It means that God wants us to love Him enough to want to give all we have. It means to love Him enough to act on curiosity about Him and draw near to Him in sincere prayer and worship. It means to listen when He speaks and watch when He shows us something, and to obey when He commands. It means to love Him so much, and to want so much to please Him and give Him the glory He deserves, that it no longer matter what we must lose because we have so much more to gain in God.
We believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. This is faith, by which we are saved by the grace of God. We then do works in accordance to God's commandments, and with that we pleae Him. But faith never becomes effective and active, never results in any works, until we love God enough to want to give all we have.
To give all we have for God may mean to lay aside a bad habit or throw away an idol; it may mean to suffer some form of ridicule, criticism, or persecution; it may mean we try to learn about Him at any opportunity; it may even mean we have to die. At Youth Quake Live, the season finale, on Friday I heard about a girl named Cassie who was shot at Columbine high school some years ago because she confessed that she had faith in God. They asked if she believed in God, she said yes, and they shot her.
This hit me because I wanted to be sure, absolutely sure, in the depths of my heart and mind, that my faith in God's promises and my love for God is strong enough so that I would say yes also. I absolutely, undoubtedly, truly and really believe in God and in His Son Jesus, God-with-us, Christ, the Messiah. It is useful to me to keep a circumstance like Cassie's in my head so I test myself and make sure that keeping my life on earth is never so important to me that I wouldn't gladly lose what I have here to be with God forever. Jim Elliot, who also died for Jesus' sake, wrote, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."
I am deeply interested in increasing my relationship with God. I want to listen when He speaks and look at what He shows me.
I will now take a quote from my beautiful (and consecutive) cousin Rinabean, whose blog is quite marvelous and insightful ( http://zee-em-sea.blogspot.com/ ) : "God has a different, better, more wonderful plan for you than you could ever dream up yourself. It'll hurt at first...but once you've been purified, He'll make you more sensitive to the things He wants to tell you. You'll be able to hear His voice more clearly once He's cleaned all the gunk out of your ears. We're not called to be normal or content with the world in its current state...or any state, now that I think about it. We're supposed to have our minds set on eternity, which isn't easy." I'm interested in figuring out where it gets hard, because then I know something good's happening. I pray for the opportunity to do something difficult, something a little uncomfortable, because then I know some walls are coming down.
I'm so glad God gave me this insight. I look forward to seeing what He has planned for me. It's probably going to hurt at times, but with faith in His promises I'll be able to remember that He loves me, and sends trouble to strengthen me and teach me and bring me closer to Him. I want to do things I haven't been doing, and I want to stop doing things I shouldn't be doing. I'm glad that God made a way for us to come to Him by coming to us.
I am thinking of a song by my favorite band, Casting Crowns, of course. "To Know You." I've only ever heard it like once. Here are the lyrics if you want to see them. http://www.lyricsreg.com/lyrics/casting+crowns/To+Know+You/
I love you and I thank you for reading this special post. I'm excited to have written it and I hope you have enjoyed it. God bless, and I hope you see miracles everywhere this week and every day.
Luke 12:29-31: "[29]And do not seek what you should eat or what you should drink, nor have an anxious mind. [30] For all these things the nations of the world seek after, and your Father knows that you need these things. [31] But seek the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you."
I don't usually open with a Bible passage, but this is where it starts. Youth pastor Ryan cited this Luke 12:31 on Wednesday as he was explaining the importance of avoiding idolatry. This message stuck in my mind because of the very clear definition which was given for idols: "Anything that you could never live without. Something necessary for you to find fulfilment." I learned that anything, even a good thing, can become too important to us so that it becomes an idol. It's not necessarily a statue that you name and worship, like it can save you. It is anything which matters so much to you that it takes up your thoughts and your time. For example, I felt that I spent WAY too much of my thoughts on texting. I just get too excited when my phone makes the little 'plink' sound to tell me I got a text, and I know it. So I resolved to stop texting for one week. On Thursday I'll allow myself to text again.
I made this decision because I have been hit this week by a central theme: devotion. Chapter Nine in The Purple Book, which I look forward to discussing with my Life group next week since we couldn't meet this week, is about Faith and Hope. As I went through the five lessons I learned more about what faith does, and what it means to act on faith. On Wednesday, the same day I heard this message about idols and priorities, the theme of the lesson was "Faith and Obedience," dicussing the relationship between one's faith in God's promises and one's obedience to His commandments. I remember from AP European History the conflict which arose in the church (1500s?) over works and faith. Some said works were important because it demonstrates obedience. Some said faith was important because it is the source of salvation. This used to confuse me because for the life of me I could not tell who was quite right. But check out James 2:15-17 "[15] If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, [16] and one of you says to them, 'Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,' but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? [17] Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead." James says that saying you have faith without actually acting upon it is like telling somebody to be relieved of all of their needs without actually giving them anything to fulfil their needs. So we need faith in Jesus Christ for salvation, to be with God, and works must follow for that faith to be worth anything. Jesus said in John 14:15 "If you love Me, keep My commandments." The reason any person with faith does works is because he loves God. After all, 'works' means actions corresponding to obedience to God.
Back to the passage I began with. Okay, so now I understood the relationship between works and faith. I must obey God's commandments out of faith in His promises. Jesus, God, commands that we "seek the kingdom of God" rather than seek after the little things we have going on in the world. He wants us to "seek the kingdom of God" instead of making idols for ourselves out of the things we think we need, the things we just have to have. He doesn't want us to depend on little things and spend our devotion on idols. But this phrase "seek the kingdom of God" stood out to me because it seems really, really important. It seems to summarize everything God wants us to do. And I needed to understand what it meant.
A little while ago, maybe 50 minutes ago actually, I was laying in my bed in quiet-time mode thinking about this. I decided I needed help understanding everything it means to "seek" God's kingdom. Having been baptized into His name and having resolved to follow Jesus, I needed to know just how to seek His kingdom.
I mean, I knew it meant complete devotion. I already knew it meant a commitment to put Him first and care most about what He wants. Pastor Russ put it this way last week: he said that our desire for God should "eclipse" all other desires. I love that. Everything I want must revolve around wanting God.
So there I was, trying to think of what exactly I should write about this week, and I asked Jesus aloud what it means to pursue His kingdom. I sat there and tried to listen. I felt like He was asking me then whether I would listen when He told me. Aloud I said I would. Then I felt He wanted me to open that Bible and take a look in there. I said okay, though I wasn't sure exactly how I'd find a section to answer my present question. I opened to Luke 21.
I did not understand for a minute exactly how relevant it is. The second time I looked at it I realized that God was opening my understanding in the most unexpected place. Luke 21:1-4 "[1] And He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury, [2] and He saw also a certain poor widow putting in two mites. [3] So He said, 'Truly I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all; [4] for all these out of their abundance have put in offerings for God, but she out of her poverty put in all the livelihood that she had."
I know this story. I've seen it before. I never noticed what this had to do with pursuing God's kingdom. I never noticed what this had to do with real devotion. I found out exactly what it means to pursue the kingdom of God.
It means that God wants us to love Him enough to want to give all we have. It means to love Him enough to act on curiosity about Him and draw near to Him in sincere prayer and worship. It means to listen when He speaks and watch when He shows us something, and to obey when He commands. It means to love Him so much, and to want so much to please Him and give Him the glory He deserves, that it no longer matter what we must lose because we have so much more to gain in God.
We believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. This is faith, by which we are saved by the grace of God. We then do works in accordance to God's commandments, and with that we pleae Him. But faith never becomes effective and active, never results in any works, until we love God enough to want to give all we have.
To give all we have for God may mean to lay aside a bad habit or throw away an idol; it may mean to suffer some form of ridicule, criticism, or persecution; it may mean we try to learn about Him at any opportunity; it may even mean we have to die. At Youth Quake Live, the season finale, on Friday I heard about a girl named Cassie who was shot at Columbine high school some years ago because she confessed that she had faith in God. They asked if she believed in God, she said yes, and they shot her.
This hit me because I wanted to be sure, absolutely sure, in the depths of my heart and mind, that my faith in God's promises and my love for God is strong enough so that I would say yes also. I absolutely, undoubtedly, truly and really believe in God and in His Son Jesus, God-with-us, Christ, the Messiah. It is useful to me to keep a circumstance like Cassie's in my head so I test myself and make sure that keeping my life on earth is never so important to me that I wouldn't gladly lose what I have here to be with God forever. Jim Elliot, who also died for Jesus' sake, wrote, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."
I am deeply interested in increasing my relationship with God. I want to listen when He speaks and look at what He shows me.
I will now take a quote from my beautiful (and consecutive) cousin Rinabean, whose blog is quite marvelous and insightful ( http://zee-em-sea.blogspot.com/ ) : "God has a different, better, more wonderful plan for you than you could ever dream up yourself. It'll hurt at first...but once you've been purified, He'll make you more sensitive to the things He wants to tell you. You'll be able to hear His voice more clearly once He's cleaned all the gunk out of your ears. We're not called to be normal or content with the world in its current state...or any state, now that I think about it. We're supposed to have our minds set on eternity, which isn't easy." I'm interested in figuring out where it gets hard, because then I know something good's happening. I pray for the opportunity to do something difficult, something a little uncomfortable, because then I know some walls are coming down.
I'm so glad God gave me this insight. I look forward to seeing what He has planned for me. It's probably going to hurt at times, but with faith in His promises I'll be able to remember that He loves me, and sends trouble to strengthen me and teach me and bring me closer to Him. I want to do things I haven't been doing, and I want to stop doing things I shouldn't be doing. I'm glad that God made a way for us to come to Him by coming to us.
I am thinking of a song by my favorite band, Casting Crowns, of course. "To Know You." I've only ever heard it like once. Here are the lyrics if you want to see them. http://www.lyricsreg.com/lyrics/casting+crowns/To+Know+You/
I love you and I thank you for reading this special post. I'm excited to have written it and I hope you have enjoyed it. God bless, and I hope you see miracles everywhere this week and every day.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Prayer: Talking to the God who Listens
THIS WEEK has been ALOT of fun for me. I saw a baby bird who couldn't figure out the whole flying thing, so he was hanging out on the ground rather confused. That was sweet and interesting to see. I got to go out to eat with my dear family on Friday. That was a very good burrito. I'm thankful for days like that.
Last week we sang "Mighty to Save" at church, and that was my theme song this week. My dad set up a clock in my room and turned its radio on to 88.1 one night, and I heard that song again that evening. "Savior, He can move the mountains. My God is mighty to save, He is mighty to save. Forever, author of salvation. He rose and conquered the grave, Jesus conquered the grave!" Love that. It's wonderful.
This week I found out that my Aunt Trisha is going to have another baby! That is a wonderful miracle. Hold on for December, we're going to have a little girl or boy just as wonderful as baby Maya. Praise God, that's so awesome.
Okay, so I'm gonna tell you about this really cool week. Last weekend I realized I had three days to prepare for a test on dates for history class. I would have to memorize over a hundred dates for a 25-question test. I was pretty scared as I started, so I prayed that God would help me to memorize this stuff in time. I made a grade of one hundred percent on that test. And on Wednesday and Thursday I had a scary Physics test which was preceded by a badly failed quiz. Yikes. So I kept praying about that - fortunately God has blessed me by giving me a brilliant boyfriend with physics skillz. Will was able to help me study, and I got an 81. Very exciting. Wednesday night I got to go to Youth Group with Will and Isabelle, and we learned about the footholds we can never let the evil one have. This is because if we let him into one area he can get into the rest, and that is a tragedy. So watch out not to let him into these things:
-Thoughts! Romans 12:2 "And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." This is important because thoughts become actions, and if we let our minds chase after anything we have no business with, whether it is lust, hate, revenge, envy, or whatever it may be, those thoughts enter into what we do and make us unable to properly resist temptations, which can be anywhere.
-Pride! Proverbs 16:18 "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." Also 1 John 2:16 "For all that is in the world - the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life - is not of the Father but is of the world." Pride is dangerous: it is the uplifting of oneself so that he believes himself to deserve anything and everything. Pride can make us willing to indulge in sins, and it also does not give glory to God. So it's a very bad thing, and Christians have no business with pride. God loves humility!
Discipline! Proverbs 8:32-34 "'[32] Now therefore, listen to me, my children, for blessed are those who keep my ways. [33] Hear instruction and be wise, and do not disdain it. [34] Blessed is the man who listens to me, watching daily at the gates, waiting at the posts of my doors.'" Jesus often talks about how important it is for a servant to wait carefully and attentively until his master gets home, and He relates this to how we should serve God diligently until the day Jesus comes back. Because you know, He's coming back soon, every day sooner than ever. The evil one would like us to get lazy and stop looking in our Bibles, and stop praying effectively, and stop resisting temptations and fighting bad habits. We are empowered to tell sin NO, so we ought to tell it NO.
-Self-Control! 1 Peter 5:8 "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour." Let me make it clear that the devil exists. He's not just all the bad things or the bad people in the world rolled up as one vague, bad entity. He's a jerk, and we hate him. And we don't want him to get a hold anywhere in our lives, so we need to have the self-control to keep from letting him in anywhere, even in the little cracks. Of course, humans are completely incapable of complete and effective restraint by our own power. So what does God do? He makes it so that we can come to Him and humbly ask Him for strength and restraint, as a child asks his dad for a glass of water or help with his homework. He's our Father, and He's God, and everything He does is greater and more powerful than anything anybody else does. So of course He'll make us able to resist evil, and to clip the rope when the devil's trying to climb up. Score.
-Friends! 1 Corinthians 15:33 "Do not be deceived: 'Evil company corrupts good habits.'" You know it's true. If you hang out with people who do things you know are wrong, you start to be less uncomfortable with it, and you very well may start doing it too. And it is not a form of witnessing to hang out with lost people who don't know Christ and do everything they do. In my devotional book, one story compares that to getting stuck in a mud puddle while trying to pull someone else out. It doesn't work. Witnessing demonstrates the difference God makes in us, not our ability to stay clean while exposing ourselves to opportunities to sin. That's just dumb. We can do better than that, with God's help. We can witness effectively by the things we do and say, because of what we are: we are His.
-The Tongue! James 3:6 "And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell." This means that we can cause alot of damage with our words. We can hurt people, we can gossip and insult people, we can lie, we can frighten people, we can even misrepresent Christ with our tongues. Um, that's not good! That's horrible! How about we think a few seconds before we start talking, and be careful what we say about someone or to someone. Little words make a big difference. Christ's words speak truth and holiness and correction and salvation and victory. Why not start reading those, and thereby improve our own words?
I think it's very important to remember that we cannot just sit down and resolve to check off all of these things at the start of the day, and effectively keep from letting the evil one get any footholds on our lives. We just can't decide to be invincible. After all, we could never get it right before, that's why God sent Jesus, so He would be with us making us able to do anything, for "With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." We can't make ourselves good enough, so He makes us good enough. No baby bird can learn to fly on his own, and no baby person learns to walk on his own. Our Heavenly Father answers when we call and promises to hear us and help us.
At Life Group with Jenny White and the other girls we talked about the Prayer and Worship, chapter 8 in the Purple Book, and I learned something very important. Since prayer is one of two vital ways in which we communicate with God (the other being worship) we must be sure to pray effectively. This means that we must trust Him that He hears, and that because He hears He will answer. In Matthew 21:22 Jesus says "And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive." Now, this doesn't mean that we get anything we think will make us happy. As Jenny pointed out, God is not a magic genie who will grant every wish despite the consequences. If Jenny says "God, I want a pink pony!" He probably won't give it to her because she can't take care of it and because it would make a mess and cause her to be evicted from her apartment. But she asked God to allow her to get a vacuum for her apartment because she really needed one, and guess what? God provided one. I actually tried this a few hours ago. I was looking for one article of clothing before I could go take my shower and I was having alot of trouble, so I asked God to help me find one, and I found it in a few minutes. Yay! God knows we need things. Matthew 7:7-11 "[7] Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. [8] For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. [9] Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? [10] Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? [11] If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!"
God is our Father, and dads take care of their kids. They give them what they need. Notice that Jesus says that He will give "good things" to those who ask. He doesn't say He'll give whatever we want. After all, if kids got everything they wanted we'd have a bunch of spoiled, overweight, grumpy, rude children with too many toys and not very many friends. God doesn't want us to be like that. He knows what's good for us. He does answer prayer, definitely, absolutely! He just doesn't always answer "Yes." There are three things He might say when we ask Him for something.
He might say "Yes." If we ask for something we need, something good which helps us to pursue holiness, He says yes and provides it. If we ask Him to help us resist temptations and keep our hearts and minds focused and intent upon Him, and to give us hearts like the early church which desire Him with all devotion and sincerity, He'll say yes. Of course He will, that's what He wants, too. Not only big things, but small things too. He'll helps us seek Him, and He'll help us drive safely, and spend money wisely, and have kind words, and get a vacuum if that's what He thinks we need.
God also might say "No." If we ask out of pride, thinking we deserve something, or if we ask for something that doesn't please Him, He's gonna say no. That's like a dad saying "No, you can't have Sugar O's with extra sugar for breakfast. It's not good for you." He might say "You can have some oatmeal," which hardly anyone likes, but you know it's very good for you. He can say we have to go through a little discomfort to grow up healthy, strong servants.
He also might say "Wait!" An example is waiting for the right person to marry. This one is cute, and that one is okay, but you know God has somebody amazing for you somewhere. He knows everybody wants to be married someday. He will bless those who are patient and wait on Him, trusting Him, whether in regards to marriage or in any other thing, that He will supply for our needs and answer our prayers so that it turns out for the best. The worst thing we can do is decide He doesn't care because we don't understand why it had to happen this way or that way, when we prayed so hard for this one to heal and for that one to come to Christ. He wants us to trust Him anyway, because whatever the cause, God knows what the reasons are. He is good no matter what happens, and He wants us to believe that even when does happen which seems bad to us.
I learned that it is important to pray effectively, believing that we will receive what we ask if it is within His will, even if it doesn't come about how we expect. I personally have a very long list of names to pray for, and I realized that it isn't right to just rail them off night after night. It's good to pray for them, but I must trust that God knows who they are and that He won't forget if I forget this one one night, or if I only mention this one's name. Praying effectively is really talking to God, glorifying Him as we pray, sincerely caring for everybody on our prayer lists, not demanding stacks of riches but being thankful for our daily bread. The more effectively we pray and worship and the more attentively we listen to and read His Word, the greater our relationship with God can be. And that's just awesome. God loves us very much. He's the only one you'll never, ever lose.
Thank you for reading. Please post any comment, and miracle, any additional thought. I'd love to hear it. Have a beautiful, blessed week.
Last week we sang "Mighty to Save" at church, and that was my theme song this week. My dad set up a clock in my room and turned its radio on to 88.1 one night, and I heard that song again that evening. "Savior, He can move the mountains. My God is mighty to save, He is mighty to save. Forever, author of salvation. He rose and conquered the grave, Jesus conquered the grave!" Love that. It's wonderful.
This week I found out that my Aunt Trisha is going to have another baby! That is a wonderful miracle. Hold on for December, we're going to have a little girl or boy just as wonderful as baby Maya. Praise God, that's so awesome.
Okay, so I'm gonna tell you about this really cool week. Last weekend I realized I had three days to prepare for a test on dates for history class. I would have to memorize over a hundred dates for a 25-question test. I was pretty scared as I started, so I prayed that God would help me to memorize this stuff in time. I made a grade of one hundred percent on that test. And on Wednesday and Thursday I had a scary Physics test which was preceded by a badly failed quiz. Yikes. So I kept praying about that - fortunately God has blessed me by giving me a brilliant boyfriend with physics skillz. Will was able to help me study, and I got an 81. Very exciting. Wednesday night I got to go to Youth Group with Will and Isabelle, and we learned about the footholds we can never let the evil one have. This is because if we let him into one area he can get into the rest, and that is a tragedy. So watch out not to let him into these things:
-Thoughts! Romans 12:2 "And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." This is important because thoughts become actions, and if we let our minds chase after anything we have no business with, whether it is lust, hate, revenge, envy, or whatever it may be, those thoughts enter into what we do and make us unable to properly resist temptations, which can be anywhere.
-Pride! Proverbs 16:18 "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." Also 1 John 2:16 "For all that is in the world - the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life - is not of the Father but is of the world." Pride is dangerous: it is the uplifting of oneself so that he believes himself to deserve anything and everything. Pride can make us willing to indulge in sins, and it also does not give glory to God. So it's a very bad thing, and Christians have no business with pride. God loves humility!
Discipline! Proverbs 8:32-34 "'[32] Now therefore, listen to me, my children, for blessed are those who keep my ways. [33] Hear instruction and be wise, and do not disdain it. [34] Blessed is the man who listens to me, watching daily at the gates, waiting at the posts of my doors.'" Jesus often talks about how important it is for a servant to wait carefully and attentively until his master gets home, and He relates this to how we should serve God diligently until the day Jesus comes back. Because you know, He's coming back soon, every day sooner than ever. The evil one would like us to get lazy and stop looking in our Bibles, and stop praying effectively, and stop resisting temptations and fighting bad habits. We are empowered to tell sin NO, so we ought to tell it NO.
-Self-Control! 1 Peter 5:8 "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour." Let me make it clear that the devil exists. He's not just all the bad things or the bad people in the world rolled up as one vague, bad entity. He's a jerk, and we hate him. And we don't want him to get a hold anywhere in our lives, so we need to have the self-control to keep from letting him in anywhere, even in the little cracks. Of course, humans are completely incapable of complete and effective restraint by our own power. So what does God do? He makes it so that we can come to Him and humbly ask Him for strength and restraint, as a child asks his dad for a glass of water or help with his homework. He's our Father, and He's God, and everything He does is greater and more powerful than anything anybody else does. So of course He'll make us able to resist evil, and to clip the rope when the devil's trying to climb up. Score.
-Friends! 1 Corinthians 15:33 "Do not be deceived: 'Evil company corrupts good habits.'" You know it's true. If you hang out with people who do things you know are wrong, you start to be less uncomfortable with it, and you very well may start doing it too. And it is not a form of witnessing to hang out with lost people who don't know Christ and do everything they do. In my devotional book, one story compares that to getting stuck in a mud puddle while trying to pull someone else out. It doesn't work. Witnessing demonstrates the difference God makes in us, not our ability to stay clean while exposing ourselves to opportunities to sin. That's just dumb. We can do better than that, with God's help. We can witness effectively by the things we do and say, because of what we are: we are His.
-The Tongue! James 3:6 "And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell." This means that we can cause alot of damage with our words. We can hurt people, we can gossip and insult people, we can lie, we can frighten people, we can even misrepresent Christ with our tongues. Um, that's not good! That's horrible! How about we think a few seconds before we start talking, and be careful what we say about someone or to someone. Little words make a big difference. Christ's words speak truth and holiness and correction and salvation and victory. Why not start reading those, and thereby improve our own words?
I think it's very important to remember that we cannot just sit down and resolve to check off all of these things at the start of the day, and effectively keep from letting the evil one get any footholds on our lives. We just can't decide to be invincible. After all, we could never get it right before, that's why God sent Jesus, so He would be with us making us able to do anything, for "With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." We can't make ourselves good enough, so He makes us good enough. No baby bird can learn to fly on his own, and no baby person learns to walk on his own. Our Heavenly Father answers when we call and promises to hear us and help us.
At Life Group with Jenny White and the other girls we talked about the Prayer and Worship, chapter 8 in the Purple Book, and I learned something very important. Since prayer is one of two vital ways in which we communicate with God (the other being worship) we must be sure to pray effectively. This means that we must trust Him that He hears, and that because He hears He will answer. In Matthew 21:22 Jesus says "And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive." Now, this doesn't mean that we get anything we think will make us happy. As Jenny pointed out, God is not a magic genie who will grant every wish despite the consequences. If Jenny says "God, I want a pink pony!" He probably won't give it to her because she can't take care of it and because it would make a mess and cause her to be evicted from her apartment. But she asked God to allow her to get a vacuum for her apartment because she really needed one, and guess what? God provided one. I actually tried this a few hours ago. I was looking for one article of clothing before I could go take my shower and I was having alot of trouble, so I asked God to help me find one, and I found it in a few minutes. Yay! God knows we need things. Matthew 7:7-11 "[7] Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. [8] For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. [9] Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? [10] Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? [11] If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!"
God is our Father, and dads take care of their kids. They give them what they need. Notice that Jesus says that He will give "good things" to those who ask. He doesn't say He'll give whatever we want. After all, if kids got everything they wanted we'd have a bunch of spoiled, overweight, grumpy, rude children with too many toys and not very many friends. God doesn't want us to be like that. He knows what's good for us. He does answer prayer, definitely, absolutely! He just doesn't always answer "Yes." There are three things He might say when we ask Him for something.
He might say "Yes." If we ask for something we need, something good which helps us to pursue holiness, He says yes and provides it. If we ask Him to help us resist temptations and keep our hearts and minds focused and intent upon Him, and to give us hearts like the early church which desire Him with all devotion and sincerity, He'll say yes. Of course He will, that's what He wants, too. Not only big things, but small things too. He'll helps us seek Him, and He'll help us drive safely, and spend money wisely, and have kind words, and get a vacuum if that's what He thinks we need.
God also might say "No." If we ask out of pride, thinking we deserve something, or if we ask for something that doesn't please Him, He's gonna say no. That's like a dad saying "No, you can't have Sugar O's with extra sugar for breakfast. It's not good for you." He might say "You can have some oatmeal," which hardly anyone likes, but you know it's very good for you. He can say we have to go through a little discomfort to grow up healthy, strong servants.
He also might say "Wait!" An example is waiting for the right person to marry. This one is cute, and that one is okay, but you know God has somebody amazing for you somewhere. He knows everybody wants to be married someday. He will bless those who are patient and wait on Him, trusting Him, whether in regards to marriage or in any other thing, that He will supply for our needs and answer our prayers so that it turns out for the best. The worst thing we can do is decide He doesn't care because we don't understand why it had to happen this way or that way, when we prayed so hard for this one to heal and for that one to come to Christ. He wants us to trust Him anyway, because whatever the cause, God knows what the reasons are. He is good no matter what happens, and He wants us to believe that even when does happen which seems bad to us.
I learned that it is important to pray effectively, believing that we will receive what we ask if it is within His will, even if it doesn't come about how we expect. I personally have a very long list of names to pray for, and I realized that it isn't right to just rail them off night after night. It's good to pray for them, but I must trust that God knows who they are and that He won't forget if I forget this one one night, or if I only mention this one's name. Praying effectively is really talking to God, glorifying Him as we pray, sincerely caring for everybody on our prayer lists, not demanding stacks of riches but being thankful for our daily bread. The more effectively we pray and worship and the more attentively we listen to and read His Word, the greater our relationship with God can be. And that's just awesome. God loves us very much. He's the only one you'll never, ever lose.
Thank you for reading. Please post any comment, and miracle, any additional thought. I'd love to hear it. Have a beautiful, blessed week.
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