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.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
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.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
A Beautiful Week
THIS WEEK has been amazing fun, just amazing. This week has meant springtime for me. I have noticed the bright flowers more than usual, and God is surprising me with marvelous little miracles even within twenty feet of my house. Earlier this week I heard two birds taking turns chirping at one another, one and the other, one and the other, a very active conversation, right outside my window. So I pulled up the blinds. There were two birds, not only one, but two, hanging out right where I could see. They were not right next to each other, but flitting about the fence and the tree, and one even sat on the ledge outside my window. I wondered what was interesting them so much, so I looked around. Looking at the ground, I saw Orange the Cat (we call him that because he is orange) looking up at them. Ooh, they did not like having that cat over there! More than once this week I tapped on the glass and made a face at Orange and he went away, because I didn't want him to bother them. It was such a sweet little scene, cat and birds. I wonder if those birds have a nest around there, in the tree right outside my window. Wouldn't that be something! This is the beautiful week that the greenish buds in that same tree have turned white and exploded into clusters of wedding lace all over the place. I am really fond of this kind of tree, and what do you know, I have been seeing them more often than usual this week, when they are all blooming into lace and pearly beads.
And out in the front yard the nice-smelling orange flowers have just now gotten dry and the petals fallen off, revealing little round green things with the flower-centers on one end, the baby oranges. I get to look at that right before I leave for school and right when I get home, because the orange tree is next to the driveway. God is beautiful! He put beauty in flowers and animals and fruits and trees. He put it in DNA and in stars and clouds, and I just can't get enough! Oh, how anyone doesn't know He exists - all this certainly didn't get here by itself.
On Thursday a really cool thing happened. My family was trying to leave for school, and a little ways down the road we heard the tires making a freaky sound. Mom got out and discovered, to her massive frustration, that we had a flat tire. Okay, what in the world do we do now? Mom left and went to see if one of our neighbors could help us, and I just sat in the passenger seat praying silently that God would help us please to get to school safely, even if we were not on time. A few minutes later Mom returned with the man who lives next door, Mr. Krug, who rather kindly helped her change the tire and get back on the road. But the really cool thing is that Mr. Krug usually leaves his house around the same time we leave, 7:30, and that day, of all days, he was planning to leave a little later. That's really cool! I love how God is there helping with even the daily frustrations. And even if we would have had to skip school to push the car to a mechanic (which we wouldn't have been forced to do in any realistic situation, don't worry) I know God would still have been there making everything okay, even if it doesn't look like it's okay. I'm grateful to Mr. Krug for helping us out, to Mom for driving us to school all week, and to God for answering my prayer and letting us get to school both safely and on time. He is present and active in peaople's lives, more present than the air, harder to escape than one's own body. It's so marvelous that He sees everything and knows everything, and loves us anyway, and stays and helps us and makes us strong enough to do what we must for His glory.
On Friday Will took me to see a beautiful movie called Letters to God. I recommend it to you. It is about a little boy with cancer who gives alot of people inspiration by writing letters to God about his life and his sickness. A Bible verse accompanied the movie, 2 Corinthians 3:3 "Clearly you are an epistle [or letter] of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart." This means that we are a way for the message of Christ to be carried, so people will 'read' it and understand it. The little boy in the movie did this by very successfully imitating Christ's loving, patient, forgiving character toward both friends and enemies. Really nice movie. I don't think we could have picked a better one to see. It makes me want to be more like Jesus.
On Saturday I was very blessed to attend both sessions of Life Group at Five Guys with Jenny White. I went to the first group's meeting which was technically just me and Jenny this week. I always have a wonderful time when I just get to talk to Jenny one on one about the chapter we're in from The Purple Book. This week is Chapter Seven: Spiritual Family & Church Life, which includes an important passage: Acts 2:42-47 "[42] They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. [43] Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. [44] All the believers were together and had everything in common. [45] They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. [46] Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, [47] praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved."
Let's look at these people for a minute. They are the first church, where it all started. They are exactly what we ought to be now, both as a whole church (the whole body of Christ, all over the world, not just in individual church buildings) and as individual people. The chapter also discusses the fact that everyone in the church has an important role, and the whole body depends on all the other parts. The people's character is joyful, generous, unselfish, simple, honest, devoted, reverent. This is how all the Christians, the church, ought to be now. They gave each other what they needed, they ate together and hung out. They were really good friends, they were all one being. Jesus wants us to be unified like that, not divided up. After all, He loves the church like a man loves his wife. He doesn't want her to be all cut up and bruised because each little part couldn't get along with all the others. I was telling Jenny, I don't know what I'd do if my right hand decided that he hates my left hand and moved out. I'd need to get the issue resolved in time to type my blog post on Sunday. I pray to have a heart like the early church, just that generous and unselfish and uncomplicated, just that honestly devoted. I pray that the church today, both as a global whole and as individual members, could live in that loving way, not only on Sunday but on every single day of the week, not only to strong, solid Christians but also to newer Christians and to non-Christians, to friends and enemies and strangers. That's how love works. It doesn't matter who you are, you don't earn love. We can't earn Christ's sacrifice, the ultimate demonstration of love, so we certainly can't earn for people to show us unselfish love and to go out of their way for us at all costs. I hope we can all have the heart of the early church, which honestly only wants to glorify God, the way He wants to be glorified, never making up its own rules and always giving honor and glory where they are due. We can be like the early church by supposrting each other and praying with each other. We are sisters and brothers before we are coworkers, buddies, classmates or anything else.
I had a wonderful time talking with Jenny in the first Life Group meeting. I stayed over for the second meeting, where Kelsie and Gabby joined us, because I was waiting for my friend Sweetu to meet me. I have been wanting for SO LONG to get to see her. I've been trying for more than a month to set up a time we could meet at the town center. Her birthday was last month on the 13th of March, and since she had expressed a desire to have her own Bible, I wanted to be able to get her one. So Happy Belated Birthday, Sweetu, if you're reading this.
The second meeting was as nice as the first, with all the ducks and seagulls waddling around nearby. I had my friends pray with me a little while before I had to leave, and when Sweetu came we walked over and picked her out a blue copy of the Holy Bible, and we spent the next couple hours having a BLAST at the town center and walking everywhere. It was very exciting. I am very glad I got to see her and I hope we can do that again soon.
It's been a beautiful week. Go outside and take a few lung-fulls of the air God made just for you to breathe. Stand under a tree and look up at the sky, and then look down and see the little flowers. This next week is going to be beautiful too, if you live like you know God is right next to you, above you, inside and outside of you, and there is no mountain of laundry, tasks, homework, questions, pain, or debt that can make Him far away. All we have to do is trust Him that He is close and acknowledge His power over all situations. Trust me, it works out alot better that trusting in yourself.
Please leave any comments you have, I'd love to hear them. Have a blessed week.
And out in the front yard the nice-smelling orange flowers have just now gotten dry and the petals fallen off, revealing little round green things with the flower-centers on one end, the baby oranges. I get to look at that right before I leave for school and right when I get home, because the orange tree is next to the driveway. God is beautiful! He put beauty in flowers and animals and fruits and trees. He put it in DNA and in stars and clouds, and I just can't get enough! Oh, how anyone doesn't know He exists - all this certainly didn't get here by itself.
On Thursday a really cool thing happened. My family was trying to leave for school, and a little ways down the road we heard the tires making a freaky sound. Mom got out and discovered, to her massive frustration, that we had a flat tire. Okay, what in the world do we do now? Mom left and went to see if one of our neighbors could help us, and I just sat in the passenger seat praying silently that God would help us please to get to school safely, even if we were not on time. A few minutes later Mom returned with the man who lives next door, Mr. Krug, who rather kindly helped her change the tire and get back on the road. But the really cool thing is that Mr. Krug usually leaves his house around the same time we leave, 7:30, and that day, of all days, he was planning to leave a little later. That's really cool! I love how God is there helping with even the daily frustrations. And even if we would have had to skip school to push the car to a mechanic (which we wouldn't have been forced to do in any realistic situation, don't worry) I know God would still have been there making everything okay, even if it doesn't look like it's okay. I'm grateful to Mr. Krug for helping us out, to Mom for driving us to school all week, and to God for answering my prayer and letting us get to school both safely and on time. He is present and active in peaople's lives, more present than the air, harder to escape than one's own body. It's so marvelous that He sees everything and knows everything, and loves us anyway, and stays and helps us and makes us strong enough to do what we must for His glory.
On Friday Will took me to see a beautiful movie called Letters to God. I recommend it to you. It is about a little boy with cancer who gives alot of people inspiration by writing letters to God about his life and his sickness. A Bible verse accompanied the movie, 2 Corinthians 3:3 "Clearly you are an epistle [or letter] of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart." This means that we are a way for the message of Christ to be carried, so people will 'read' it and understand it. The little boy in the movie did this by very successfully imitating Christ's loving, patient, forgiving character toward both friends and enemies. Really nice movie. I don't think we could have picked a better one to see. It makes me want to be more like Jesus.
On Saturday I was very blessed to attend both sessions of Life Group at Five Guys with Jenny White. I went to the first group's meeting which was technically just me and Jenny this week. I always have a wonderful time when I just get to talk to Jenny one on one about the chapter we're in from The Purple Book. This week is Chapter Seven: Spiritual Family & Church Life, which includes an important passage: Acts 2:42-47 "[42] They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. [43] Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. [44] All the believers were together and had everything in common. [45] They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. [46] Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, [47] praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved."
Let's look at these people for a minute. They are the first church, where it all started. They are exactly what we ought to be now, both as a whole church (the whole body of Christ, all over the world, not just in individual church buildings) and as individual people. The chapter also discusses the fact that everyone in the church has an important role, and the whole body depends on all the other parts. The people's character is joyful, generous, unselfish, simple, honest, devoted, reverent. This is how all the Christians, the church, ought to be now. They gave each other what they needed, they ate together and hung out. They were really good friends, they were all one being. Jesus wants us to be unified like that, not divided up. After all, He loves the church like a man loves his wife. He doesn't want her to be all cut up and bruised because each little part couldn't get along with all the others. I was telling Jenny, I don't know what I'd do if my right hand decided that he hates my left hand and moved out. I'd need to get the issue resolved in time to type my blog post on Sunday. I pray to have a heart like the early church, just that generous and unselfish and uncomplicated, just that honestly devoted. I pray that the church today, both as a global whole and as individual members, could live in that loving way, not only on Sunday but on every single day of the week, not only to strong, solid Christians but also to newer Christians and to non-Christians, to friends and enemies and strangers. That's how love works. It doesn't matter who you are, you don't earn love. We can't earn Christ's sacrifice, the ultimate demonstration of love, so we certainly can't earn for people to show us unselfish love and to go out of their way for us at all costs. I hope we can all have the heart of the early church, which honestly only wants to glorify God, the way He wants to be glorified, never making up its own rules and always giving honor and glory where they are due. We can be like the early church by supposrting each other and praying with each other. We are sisters and brothers before we are coworkers, buddies, classmates or anything else.
I had a wonderful time talking with Jenny in the first Life Group meeting. I stayed over for the second meeting, where Kelsie and Gabby joined us, because I was waiting for my friend Sweetu to meet me. I have been wanting for SO LONG to get to see her. I've been trying for more than a month to set up a time we could meet at the town center. Her birthday was last month on the 13th of March, and since she had expressed a desire to have her own Bible, I wanted to be able to get her one. So Happy Belated Birthday, Sweetu, if you're reading this.
The second meeting was as nice as the first, with all the ducks and seagulls waddling around nearby. I had my friends pray with me a little while before I had to leave, and when Sweetu came we walked over and picked her out a blue copy of the Holy Bible, and we spent the next couple hours having a BLAST at the town center and walking everywhere. It was very exciting. I am very glad I got to see her and I hope we can do that again soon.
It's been a beautiful week. Go outside and take a few lung-fulls of the air God made just for you to breathe. Stand under a tree and look up at the sky, and then look down and see the little flowers. This next week is going to be beautiful too, if you live like you know God is right next to you, above you, inside and outside of you, and there is no mountain of laundry, tasks, homework, questions, pain, or debt that can make Him far away. All we have to do is trust Him that He is close and acknowledge His power over all situations. Trust me, it works out alot better that trusting in yourself.
Please leave any comments you have, I'd love to hear them. Have a blessed week.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Resign or Resume
THIS WEEK has been very exciting. I went to Youthgroup Wednesday, the State Latin Competition from Thursday to Saturday, and Prom Saturday night. So it's been a big week, and I've had fun.
At Youthgroup Pastor Ryan discussed challenges and how we respond to them. This is a good one because there is nobody in the world who does not have a challenge. From the moment we are born we are challenged at least to get enough air, and after that we must learn a lifetime full of knowledge AND we must use it appropriately. It's a challenging life, especially if it is a life lived by faith. This is because, as Jesus repeatedly informs us, the world tends to hate the Truth and to revile those who follow it. There are people who hate Christians and think we are hypocrites and fools, and there are those who think any religion is valid because we couldn't prove one any better than another. The beautiful and yet tragic irony is that we can tell just who is in the dark, and we can see that Christianity (which is not really a religion, but a relationship) proves to be different from all other belief systems. Indeed, it refuses to mix with the all-accepting idea that all religions are equally valid because Christians believe there is no other way to God. We understand that we cannot earn God nor do anything to become good enough for Him. God knows that too, so He makes a way for us to come to Him - by coming to us!
So we see that Christians are going to face some conflicts in the world. The conflicts will not only be with whether other people will accept us but also with overcoming temptations and with facing the hard things that just happen in life. We do that by becoming increasingly familiar with His Word and arming ourselves in this way against the deceptions in the world, which come from the devil, and the potentially harmful effects of pain and failure. But we know that we all tend to fall into some form of temptation every now and then. What does that mean? We have the Holy Spirit to makes us able to tell sin NO, and we have the Word to direct our minds, and we've been made new by Christ. Shouldn't we be able to stay completely out of temptation forever? It's a terribly frustrating thought to deal with if you do not know that God is patient, and that He knows our nature. If we trust Him that He will forgive us, and if we are truly repentant and confess to Him our wrongdoings, then He is faithful and just to forgive us.
As for pain and obstacles, we need to remember that God knows about pain. And He knows how to get us over anything. The trick is not to sit and pick at the scabs but to show the hurt to God and let Him put a Band-aid on it.
In regards to temptations, obstacles, and persecutions there is a major choice we make every time. This is what Pastor Ryan was talking about. We can choose to resign, believing we are failures for giving in to temptation, or giving up on a worthwhile effort because of a failure or a roadblock, or going home because your enemy reviles you. Or we can choose to resume, having a repentant heart which asks for forgiveness and continues the walk, or accepting a failure and trying something different to achieve what you are called to, or turning the other cheek to persecution and continuing with all boldness and rejoicing.
Here's what the Bible says about slipping into temptation. First John 1:7-10.
"[7] But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. [8] If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. [9] If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. [10] If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word in not in us."
This is cool because it reminds us that even we Christians, cleansed of all sin, make mistakes. There is a difference between slipping up and just not following Christ. Following Christ is more than an action, and more than a lifestyle. It's a life that lasts past death. Christians slip up (don't lie to yourself - we do). But when we do, it is important to acknowledge the mistake, repent and confess to God, and not do it again. He forgives. It's very awesome that He forgives. He knows what we're like, and that we're people who need forgiveness. That's why He came, to make it possible for us to be forgiven. Now, He might still put us through some things to straighten us out and to teach us a lesson, but don't all fathers do that to help their children? Of course they do. No dad ever raises good kids by never teaching them any lessons. But a good dad teaches lessons AND forgives the mistakes, loving that kid non-stop no matter what stupid thing he does. Like the prodigal son's dad in Luke 15, remember?
Here's what the Bible says about obstacles. Micah 7:8
"Do not rejoice over me, my enemy; When I fall, I will arise; When I sit in darkness, the LORD will be a light to me."
And obstacle could be pain, failure, disappointment, a change of plans, a loss, or even a distraction. These things happen in life. The devil knows we can do amazing things with God's guidance, and he knows that God is able to include us in amazing plans. So he wants to stop us, and often that's why we have obstacles. Other times God gives us obstacles to teach us things and to strenthen us. The tricky part is the decision we make when we face something that messes with us. We could give up or try to solve things by ourselves, or we could call on God to pick us up again. I know a song like that, Arms Around Me by Hawk Nelson. "Put Your arms around me, I know, trying hard not to let go. Every time I stand up I fall without You. With Your arms around me I know, with me wherever I go. Nothing else matters at all when You're here." He's never going to let go. We just have to trust Him. That's all He's ever wanted us to do. Trust Him, Love Him, Obey Him. He's never going to leave, and that's something you can't say about anyone or anything else.
Here's what the Bible says about persecution. Romans 8: 36-39. This is awesome.
"[36] As it is written, 'For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.' [37] Yet in all these thing we are more than conquerers through Him who loved us. [38] For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, [39] nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
I know most of us don't die for being Christians nowadays, but many do and this passage is good for them. As for those of us who don't really get killed for being Christians, we know that we do take up our crosses daily. This means to daily surrender ourselves to whatever God wants, however it hurts, and that can be dying. It is dying to ourselves and to the world. I've heard it's like becoming a clean window for light to shine through. That's what I want to be. No matter what happens to us, nothing will ever separate us from God.
In the book of Daniel, chapter 3, three guys called Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego refused to bow to the big gold idol that the king made for everybody to worship. They worshipped God, who says not to worship anything or anyone else. Aware of the consequences, they refused to bow to the idol and were tossed by the angry king's men into a super duper hot flaming scorching burning fiery furnace of fire. The guys who tossed them in even got killed from the fire. But these three guys had told the king that they knew God is able to save them from the fire if He wants to, so they were not burned. Everybody was shocked. They saw them walking around with a mysterious Fourth Figure, probably an angel, inside the fire. The king told them to come out, and they did. They were not even stlightly barbecued. Here's what the king Nabuchadnezzar said, Micah 3:28-29, "[28] Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego, who sent His Angel and delivered His servants who trusted in Him, and yielded their bodies, that they should not serve nor worhip any god except their own God! [29] Therefore I make a decree that any people, nation, or language which speaks anything amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made an ash-heap; because there is no other God who can deliver like this." The chapter ends with the three men being given promotions in Babylon.
Their self-sacrificial action, made out of love for God, glorified God in several ways. First, they had put Him before themselves. Second, God saved them for trusting Him even unto the very real threat of death, and this put Nebuchadnezzar in awe of their very real God. Third, the king was inspired to command that everyone everywhere hold respect for this God's name, where he had previously sought to make everybody worhsip his pretty golden idol. God is awesome. I like that last part of the king's statement, "there is no other God who can deliver like this." It's true. Think about all the other religions you know apart from Christianity. There is no other belief system in which the god being worship wants the people to come to Him, and loves them enough to make Himself the way for them to get to Him. There is no other religion in which there is not a list of things people have to do to achieve closeness to God. God just took down all the walls and curtains. There is no other faith in which there is a god who is consistent, present, honestly uncomplicated, yet powerful, far above comprehension or measure. Everywhere else there is an idea of a God who is mystically vague, or who encourages bloody vengefulness, or who hides from the people who long to come close to Him. In Jesus there is peace because God is not far away.
What about this nutty world, then? We start to wonder. I saw on the news a story about a girl named Haleigh Cummings who has been missing for about 14 months. They're saying she is "likely dead." And I wonder what's happening in the world, and whether the news people have anything nice to tell me. Did Suzie Brown's dog have puppies? Did somebody get married? This girl is "likely dead" they say. It's horrible, it's incredible. Keep praying that wherever she is she is safe, and that she might be back with her family soon, and that if there is a shred of glimmering hope that survives a phrase like "likely dead" that that hope will grow until it becomes her true situation.
But this is the same world where Pastor Ryan is getting married to Shelby on May 29th,and where little babies giggle and learn their family's names, and where Jesus once walked so that there is still hope. God is still here. So whatever problem comes up, whether it is pain and hurt, or persecution, or rejection, or temptations, or whatever it is, I encourage you to be aware of the choice you make in dealing with it. We can resign, or we can resume. Job resumed, and he had nothing besides God. In Second Corinthians 12:9 Jesus speaks to Paul, "And He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness." Sometimes we have to have problems before we can see that God makes us able to get past them. Whatever they are, if we overcome them through trust in Him rather than stumbling over them through trust in ourselves or in empty things, our victory over them can be a way for our lives to bring Him glory. I pray anybody who is reading this who has a problem or who knows somebody who knows somebody who has a problem will find comfort in these words. God doesn't leave.
At Youthgroup Pastor Ryan discussed challenges and how we respond to them. This is a good one because there is nobody in the world who does not have a challenge. From the moment we are born we are challenged at least to get enough air, and after that we must learn a lifetime full of knowledge AND we must use it appropriately. It's a challenging life, especially if it is a life lived by faith. This is because, as Jesus repeatedly informs us, the world tends to hate the Truth and to revile those who follow it. There are people who hate Christians and think we are hypocrites and fools, and there are those who think any religion is valid because we couldn't prove one any better than another. The beautiful and yet tragic irony is that we can tell just who is in the dark, and we can see that Christianity (which is not really a religion, but a relationship) proves to be different from all other belief systems. Indeed, it refuses to mix with the all-accepting idea that all religions are equally valid because Christians believe there is no other way to God. We understand that we cannot earn God nor do anything to become good enough for Him. God knows that too, so He makes a way for us to come to Him - by coming to us!
So we see that Christians are going to face some conflicts in the world. The conflicts will not only be with whether other people will accept us but also with overcoming temptations and with facing the hard things that just happen in life. We do that by becoming increasingly familiar with His Word and arming ourselves in this way against the deceptions in the world, which come from the devil, and the potentially harmful effects of pain and failure. But we know that we all tend to fall into some form of temptation every now and then. What does that mean? We have the Holy Spirit to makes us able to tell sin NO, and we have the Word to direct our minds, and we've been made new by Christ. Shouldn't we be able to stay completely out of temptation forever? It's a terribly frustrating thought to deal with if you do not know that God is patient, and that He knows our nature. If we trust Him that He will forgive us, and if we are truly repentant and confess to Him our wrongdoings, then He is faithful and just to forgive us.
As for pain and obstacles, we need to remember that God knows about pain. And He knows how to get us over anything. The trick is not to sit and pick at the scabs but to show the hurt to God and let Him put a Band-aid on it.
In regards to temptations, obstacles, and persecutions there is a major choice we make every time. This is what Pastor Ryan was talking about. We can choose to resign, believing we are failures for giving in to temptation, or giving up on a worthwhile effort because of a failure or a roadblock, or going home because your enemy reviles you. Or we can choose to resume, having a repentant heart which asks for forgiveness and continues the walk, or accepting a failure and trying something different to achieve what you are called to, or turning the other cheek to persecution and continuing with all boldness and rejoicing.
Here's what the Bible says about slipping into temptation. First John 1:7-10.
"[7] But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. [8] If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. [9] If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. [10] If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word in not in us."
This is cool because it reminds us that even we Christians, cleansed of all sin, make mistakes. There is a difference between slipping up and just not following Christ. Following Christ is more than an action, and more than a lifestyle. It's a life that lasts past death. Christians slip up (don't lie to yourself - we do). But when we do, it is important to acknowledge the mistake, repent and confess to God, and not do it again. He forgives. It's very awesome that He forgives. He knows what we're like, and that we're people who need forgiveness. That's why He came, to make it possible for us to be forgiven. Now, He might still put us through some things to straighten us out and to teach us a lesson, but don't all fathers do that to help their children? Of course they do. No dad ever raises good kids by never teaching them any lessons. But a good dad teaches lessons AND forgives the mistakes, loving that kid non-stop no matter what stupid thing he does. Like the prodigal son's dad in Luke 15, remember?
Here's what the Bible says about obstacles. Micah 7:8
"Do not rejoice over me, my enemy; When I fall, I will arise; When I sit in darkness, the LORD will be a light to me."
And obstacle could be pain, failure, disappointment, a change of plans, a loss, or even a distraction. These things happen in life. The devil knows we can do amazing things with God's guidance, and he knows that God is able to include us in amazing plans. So he wants to stop us, and often that's why we have obstacles. Other times God gives us obstacles to teach us things and to strenthen us. The tricky part is the decision we make when we face something that messes with us. We could give up or try to solve things by ourselves, or we could call on God to pick us up again. I know a song like that, Arms Around Me by Hawk Nelson. "Put Your arms around me, I know, trying hard not to let go. Every time I stand up I fall without You. With Your arms around me I know, with me wherever I go. Nothing else matters at all when You're here." He's never going to let go. We just have to trust Him. That's all He's ever wanted us to do. Trust Him, Love Him, Obey Him. He's never going to leave, and that's something you can't say about anyone or anything else.
Here's what the Bible says about persecution. Romans 8: 36-39. This is awesome.
"[36] As it is written, 'For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.' [37] Yet in all these thing we are more than conquerers through Him who loved us. [38] For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, [39] nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
I know most of us don't die for being Christians nowadays, but many do and this passage is good for them. As for those of us who don't really get killed for being Christians, we know that we do take up our crosses daily. This means to daily surrender ourselves to whatever God wants, however it hurts, and that can be dying. It is dying to ourselves and to the world. I've heard it's like becoming a clean window for light to shine through. That's what I want to be. No matter what happens to us, nothing will ever separate us from God.
In the book of Daniel, chapter 3, three guys called Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego refused to bow to the big gold idol that the king made for everybody to worship. They worshipped God, who says not to worship anything or anyone else. Aware of the consequences, they refused to bow to the idol and were tossed by the angry king's men into a super duper hot flaming scorching burning fiery furnace of fire. The guys who tossed them in even got killed from the fire. But these three guys had told the king that they knew God is able to save them from the fire if He wants to, so they were not burned. Everybody was shocked. They saw them walking around with a mysterious Fourth Figure, probably an angel, inside the fire. The king told them to come out, and they did. They were not even stlightly barbecued. Here's what the king Nabuchadnezzar said, Micah 3:28-29, "[28] Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego, who sent His Angel and delivered His servants who trusted in Him, and yielded their bodies, that they should not serve nor worhip any god except their own God! [29] Therefore I make a decree that any people, nation, or language which speaks anything amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made an ash-heap; because there is no other God who can deliver like this." The chapter ends with the three men being given promotions in Babylon.
Their self-sacrificial action, made out of love for God, glorified God in several ways. First, they had put Him before themselves. Second, God saved them for trusting Him even unto the very real threat of death, and this put Nebuchadnezzar in awe of their very real God. Third, the king was inspired to command that everyone everywhere hold respect for this God's name, where he had previously sought to make everybody worhsip his pretty golden idol. God is awesome. I like that last part of the king's statement, "there is no other God who can deliver like this." It's true. Think about all the other religions you know apart from Christianity. There is no other belief system in which the god being worship wants the people to come to Him, and loves them enough to make Himself the way for them to get to Him. There is no other religion in which there is not a list of things people have to do to achieve closeness to God. God just took down all the walls and curtains. There is no other faith in which there is a god who is consistent, present, honestly uncomplicated, yet powerful, far above comprehension or measure. Everywhere else there is an idea of a God who is mystically vague, or who encourages bloody vengefulness, or who hides from the people who long to come close to Him. In Jesus there is peace because God is not far away.
What about this nutty world, then? We start to wonder. I saw on the news a story about a girl named Haleigh Cummings who has been missing for about 14 months. They're saying she is "likely dead." And I wonder what's happening in the world, and whether the news people have anything nice to tell me. Did Suzie Brown's dog have puppies? Did somebody get married? This girl is "likely dead" they say. It's horrible, it's incredible. Keep praying that wherever she is she is safe, and that she might be back with her family soon, and that if there is a shred of glimmering hope that survives a phrase like "likely dead" that that hope will grow until it becomes her true situation.
But this is the same world where Pastor Ryan is getting married to Shelby on May 29th,and where little babies giggle and learn their family's names, and where Jesus once walked so that there is still hope. God is still here. So whatever problem comes up, whether it is pain and hurt, or persecution, or rejection, or temptations, or whatever it is, I encourage you to be aware of the choice you make in dealing with it. We can resign, or we can resume. Job resumed, and he had nothing besides God. In Second Corinthians 12:9 Jesus speaks to Paul, "And He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness." Sometimes we have to have problems before we can see that God makes us able to get past them. Whatever they are, if we overcome them through trust in Him rather than stumbling over them through trust in ourselves or in empty things, our victory over them can be a way for our lives to bring Him glory. I pray anybody who is reading this who has a problem or who knows somebody who knows somebody who has a problem will find comfort in these words. God doesn't leave.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
With Jesus
THIS WEEK has been very interesting, and I've noticed some interesting things. Check this out: Do you know how often we read or hear or sing the name 'Jesus' ? Wherever we are, we think about Him alot, don't we? And we hear His name alot in Scripture. There is a song that's actually dancing around in my head right now - it goes "No sweeter name than the name of Jesus, no sweeter name have I ever known!" And it's very true, isn't it? In calling on His name we are saved. That's awesome. But we need to be careful that we don't forget what His name means, and who He is. Under our breath in prayer and at the top of our lungs in song, between the pages of our Bibles, we say His name over and over. Then I realize: Jesus walked this earth! He has a body, and He breathed and He moved and He was physically tangible. He is a real person. I hope that we don't lose sight of His face and His presence, but rather that we each feel Him present wherever we go.
I was reading in "The Applause of Heaven" by Max Lucado, and I read a story about an old, sick man who had a habit of pulling up an empty chair and actually making conversation with Jesus. This man explained this practice to a pastor who came to visit him. A few days later he died, and his daughter told the pastor that he had died with his head not on his pillow, but resting comfortably on a chair beside his bed.
This story is important to me. I can relate to it in a way: sometimes when I'm nervous or uncomfortable I ask Jesus to come sit in all the empty chairs of the building, or just one right beside me. That not quite the same as just making conversation, but it makes me feel better because I know He is actually there, because He is everywhere, and He's in me, too. When I had read this story I pulled the chair out from in front of my computer and I talked to Jesus, a really real talk to Him. I couldn't see Him, but I felt He was there. He said He'd be with us always, and everything He ever said was true has proven to be true. He is a real person, with real flesh and bones and real blood that was spilled and a real heart full of pure love. He is God. We look at Him through the words in the Bible, seeing him heal sick people. We see how He never took orders (for He gives the orders) and how He is perfectly willing to help anybody who asks Him believing that He can and will heal them, knowing that nobody deserves His help. He talked and thought and acted like God does, and nobody could ever trap Him in His words, for they are perfect wisdom. His parables and miracles had meanings, meant to help us understand and not to just make us gasp and wonder how He can do these things. Any magician can make us gasp, and any sage can say wise things, and any doctor can help heal people. But nobody else ever lived who worked like Jesus Christ.
Doctors don't touch paralytics and make them jump up and walk around. Magicians don't elucidate the mysteries of heaven and earth by making cards and coins disappear. Sages may be wise in a few things, but they do not always come right to the people and convict people with the truth about themselves, and they don't always make sense like Jesus does. Only God works this way. That's who Jesus is. More than a name, more than a story or a prayer or a dream, more than an uplifted stained glass face or a painting under beams of holy light. He is God, a great God, the only God, who came to us and wants us, and wants us to want Him! That's who Jesus is. In all the books and all the catalogues of gods and ideas about God and concepts of how to get close to God, there is no other way laid out so beautifully as this one. There is no other way that really leads to God. There is nothing else, nothing more. It is simple and beautiful: God Himself loves us so much that He came to earth in he form of a sinless Man to suffer and die in our place, promising that whoever believes in who He is will have their sins transferred to Him, for He died to wipe them away. None of the Hindu gods will do more than look at you from inside their picture frames. No other god wants to be with us. No elemental earth gods redeem the soul. No other god made it so that we could be reunited with Him and not have to try to be good enough ourselves, which we have never been able to be. No other God exists!
It's good to get on our knees and pray often. I just hope that when I do that I never forget who it is I'm praying to. It is not prayer to deliver a list of names and causes and say thanks for the same list of things, say amen, and be done. We can't ust say "Lord, Lord" over and over and never pray from our hearts. It is prayer to kneel with the heart and lift thanks, to sincerely ask for guidance and help for ourselves and all the people around us, and to realize that when we pray, God is sitting there hearing us! Isn't that something? God hears our prayers, no matter what the volume, no matter what language, because He can hear it all at once and do it all at once, and it's never too much for Him. He never asks us to speak up so He can hear us, and He doesn't require us to learn a special way to talk to Him. He knows it all already, anyway. But He wants us to want to talk to Him. And when we do, He is absolutely listening. Sometimes His response is "Yes," sometimes it's "No," and sometimes it's "Wait and See," and sometimes it's "Oh, I have something so much better for you than that!" If He Himself is willing to listen to us, then we need to be willing to listen to Him too.
On Saturday I had Life Group with Jenny White, and none of the other members of the group came. So I had her all to myself, and we had fun. We walked from Five Guys over to Kilwin's at the Town Center and got ice cream, and then we started our discussion of chapter 6 of "The Purple Book" : Discipleship and Leadership. It was really cool, because we'd actually started talking about it last week with several other girls in the group and we only got through one lesson. I had really wanted to go over this chapter with Jenny, so I feel blessed to have had the chance to talk to her one on one about it before going on to the next chapter.
We discussed what is means to "take up your cross daily." She explained that it relates to what Jesus had to do with His cross: He did what He knew He needed to do for God's glory, though every muscle told Him not to. It was scary. In addition to suffering, He was also victorious. Gloriously victorious. This is the way it is with taking up my cross: it is to lay aside what I want for the sake of what I know is right. It is not going out of my way to do needlessly difficult tasks that won't accomplish anything. It is going out of my way to to difficult things that have a purpose, to honor God. And doing that, I know I'll be victorious because He will bless my efforts. But it's pretty scary, right? Often I can't figure out just what I personally need to be doing. I wonder what it is that I need to go do to follow Jesus.
And then I realize that it's not just one thing I do, it's the way I live and all the things I do while I'm living. It's not 'Today I'm going to do this.' That leaves room for any little thing to distract me and keep me from doing it. It's 'I'm always going to be this.' To 'be' something is more effective and more long-term than to 'do' something. 'Being' something involves all that I do. It's a lifestyle and the focus of my heart and mind. It's much easier to actually 'do' what is necessary when I choose to 'be' the Christian servant that 'does' what I need to. Whatever it is: to show love, to share a verse, to pick up somebody's pencil, to talk to a friend or a stranger, to go across the world to reach somebody. I don't need to know right now what all my tasks will be, but I need to be a servant of God if I'm going to hope I'll actually do anything. So the Spirit will reveal what needs to be going on, all according to God's perfect timing. He will show me what my flaws are and help me to grow, as He does with all Christians throughout our entire lives. It is a lifelong journey, with Jesus. And then we get to stay forever with Jesus!
Thank you for reading. God bless. Please share your comments, prayer requests, and anything that God is amazing you with this week.
I was reading in "The Applause of Heaven" by Max Lucado, and I read a story about an old, sick man who had a habit of pulling up an empty chair and actually making conversation with Jesus. This man explained this practice to a pastor who came to visit him. A few days later he died, and his daughter told the pastor that he had died with his head not on his pillow, but resting comfortably on a chair beside his bed.
This story is important to me. I can relate to it in a way: sometimes when I'm nervous or uncomfortable I ask Jesus to come sit in all the empty chairs of the building, or just one right beside me. That not quite the same as just making conversation, but it makes me feel better because I know He is actually there, because He is everywhere, and He's in me, too. When I had read this story I pulled the chair out from in front of my computer and I talked to Jesus, a really real talk to Him. I couldn't see Him, but I felt He was there. He said He'd be with us always, and everything He ever said was true has proven to be true. He is a real person, with real flesh and bones and real blood that was spilled and a real heart full of pure love. He is God. We look at Him through the words in the Bible, seeing him heal sick people. We see how He never took orders (for He gives the orders) and how He is perfectly willing to help anybody who asks Him believing that He can and will heal them, knowing that nobody deserves His help. He talked and thought and acted like God does, and nobody could ever trap Him in His words, for they are perfect wisdom. His parables and miracles had meanings, meant to help us understand and not to just make us gasp and wonder how He can do these things. Any magician can make us gasp, and any sage can say wise things, and any doctor can help heal people. But nobody else ever lived who worked like Jesus Christ.
Doctors don't touch paralytics and make them jump up and walk around. Magicians don't elucidate the mysteries of heaven and earth by making cards and coins disappear. Sages may be wise in a few things, but they do not always come right to the people and convict people with the truth about themselves, and they don't always make sense like Jesus does. Only God works this way. That's who Jesus is. More than a name, more than a story or a prayer or a dream, more than an uplifted stained glass face or a painting under beams of holy light. He is God, a great God, the only God, who came to us and wants us, and wants us to want Him! That's who Jesus is. In all the books and all the catalogues of gods and ideas about God and concepts of how to get close to God, there is no other way laid out so beautifully as this one. There is no other way that really leads to God. There is nothing else, nothing more. It is simple and beautiful: God Himself loves us so much that He came to earth in he form of a sinless Man to suffer and die in our place, promising that whoever believes in who He is will have their sins transferred to Him, for He died to wipe them away. None of the Hindu gods will do more than look at you from inside their picture frames. No other god wants to be with us. No elemental earth gods redeem the soul. No other god made it so that we could be reunited with Him and not have to try to be good enough ourselves, which we have never been able to be. No other God exists!
It's good to get on our knees and pray often. I just hope that when I do that I never forget who it is I'm praying to. It is not prayer to deliver a list of names and causes and say thanks for the same list of things, say amen, and be done. We can't ust say "Lord, Lord" over and over and never pray from our hearts. It is prayer to kneel with the heart and lift thanks, to sincerely ask for guidance and help for ourselves and all the people around us, and to realize that when we pray, God is sitting there hearing us! Isn't that something? God hears our prayers, no matter what the volume, no matter what language, because He can hear it all at once and do it all at once, and it's never too much for Him. He never asks us to speak up so He can hear us, and He doesn't require us to learn a special way to talk to Him. He knows it all already, anyway. But He wants us to want to talk to Him. And when we do, He is absolutely listening. Sometimes His response is "Yes," sometimes it's "No," and sometimes it's "Wait and See," and sometimes it's "Oh, I have something so much better for you than that!" If He Himself is willing to listen to us, then we need to be willing to listen to Him too.
On Saturday I had Life Group with Jenny White, and none of the other members of the group came. So I had her all to myself, and we had fun. We walked from Five Guys over to Kilwin's at the Town Center and got ice cream, and then we started our discussion of chapter 6 of "The Purple Book" : Discipleship and Leadership. It was really cool, because we'd actually started talking about it last week with several other girls in the group and we only got through one lesson. I had really wanted to go over this chapter with Jenny, so I feel blessed to have had the chance to talk to her one on one about it before going on to the next chapter.
We discussed what is means to "take up your cross daily." She explained that it relates to what Jesus had to do with His cross: He did what He knew He needed to do for God's glory, though every muscle told Him not to. It was scary. In addition to suffering, He was also victorious. Gloriously victorious. This is the way it is with taking up my cross: it is to lay aside what I want for the sake of what I know is right. It is not going out of my way to do needlessly difficult tasks that won't accomplish anything. It is going out of my way to to difficult things that have a purpose, to honor God. And doing that, I know I'll be victorious because He will bless my efforts. But it's pretty scary, right? Often I can't figure out just what I personally need to be doing. I wonder what it is that I need to go do to follow Jesus.
And then I realize that it's not just one thing I do, it's the way I live and all the things I do while I'm living. It's not 'Today I'm going to do this.' That leaves room for any little thing to distract me and keep me from doing it. It's 'I'm always going to be this.' To 'be' something is more effective and more long-term than to 'do' something. 'Being' something involves all that I do. It's a lifestyle and the focus of my heart and mind. It's much easier to actually 'do' what is necessary when I choose to 'be' the Christian servant that 'does' what I need to. Whatever it is: to show love, to share a verse, to pick up somebody's pencil, to talk to a friend or a stranger, to go across the world to reach somebody. I don't need to know right now what all my tasks will be, but I need to be a servant of God if I'm going to hope I'll actually do anything. So the Spirit will reveal what needs to be going on, all according to God's perfect timing. He will show me what my flaws are and help me to grow, as He does with all Christians throughout our entire lives. It is a lifelong journey, with Jesus. And then we get to stay forever with Jesus!
Thank you for reading. God bless. Please share your comments, prayer requests, and anything that God is amazing you with this week.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Good Friday and Easter Sunday
THIS WEEK has been one that I will remember for the rest of my life. Good Friday and Easter have to be among my favorite holidays, and this year was more memorable and special than ever before.
A few weeks ago I blogged to you about how I talked to Jenny White about the nature of water baptism, and how she explained that it is a public demonstration of a believer's faith in Christ. I told you that the day after I talked to her about it, there was an event posted in Southpoint's slide show that said water baptisms were to happen on April 2, 2010, right after the Good Friday service. Well I signed up for that a week or two after I first saw the slide, and this week I have been water baptized.
Before the Good Friday Service maybe thirty or forty people sat in the mandatory class meant to remind us of what water baptism is for: it demonstrates our commitment to live a resurrected life, since, having been saved by grace, we are alive in the Spirit and dead to sin. Having been freed from sin, we are enslaved to righteousness. Mr. Eric reminded us all about this and then led us outside to the baptism pool to show us where it would be happening. I tested the water with my hand. It was very comfortably warm. The whole sky was smooth and blue, and perfect winds were brushing by us. God gave us the perfect evening to be baptized: not too cold, and not too hot either. We turned around and reentered the church building, and soon the service started.
The first song we sang before the service is one I have known for a little longer than I have been saved. I think it has been about five years. It was "Here I am to Worship," and I knew practically all of the words. It is very appropriate for Good Friday, as well as any day: "Lord of the earth, You stepped down into darkness. Opened my eyes let me see. Beauty that made this heart adore You, hope of a life spent with You..." I love it. We sang and sang. They were really wonderful songs. There was also "Above All," which I did not know before. "Crucified, laid behind a stone. You lived to die rejected and alone. And like a rose trampled on the ground You took the fall and thought of me above all." It's important to remember that we cannot for the life of us save our own lives, and we cannot fill the hole in our hearts with anything besides God. He made us to want Him, and He made it so that we can get to Him. That was no easy thing. But, as Pastor Russ often says, God was never so in control, so strong, so powerful, so glorious and so victorious, as when He Himself, Jesus Christ, God-in-Man, was dying for us. He never had to, and you know He could have told the angels to come wipe everybody out and rescue Him, but He didn't. He died, because He knew that it was what He was supposed to do. God did what God wanted Him to do. All to get us back, all to get me back, all to get you back, because He loves us. That's how we know we can never be good enough by ourselves: He went to such great lengths to unify us with Him by such means as we could never produce on our own part, no matter what we do.
When we were done singing, Pastor Russ came and discussed the concept of mourning. He explained that believers mourn where Jesus is missing. When we see that He is not inside of somebody we know, we mourn for the person. When the disciples saw that He was dead, they mourned for the missing Jesus, although of course He came back in three days! And we mourn when we see that there is a place in our lives where we have not given Him control. He doesn't want just part of my heart, but all of it. I have been praying to have a heart that desires Him, and nobody else, so fervently that if there is an area in my life where I am trying to run things, and not letting it be His, that I would mourn and let it go. I pray that every day of my life I could work toward loving my God with ALL my heart, soul, and mind, so that I will be willing to let go anything that's getting in the way and holding me back. Youth Pastor Ryan compares those things to treadmills, where you work and fight but do not go forward. This is a race we're running; we need to go somewhere.
I had to leave the sermon early with the others so that I could go change into my dark clothes. When I had changed and gone outside, I marched barefoot in the cool of the settling day toward the baptism area, speaking out loud "You and me, Jesus, You and me, You and me, You and me." I used to be afraid to get baptized. I used to be scared I would drown, or hurt my back being pulled backwards. Also it was just frightening to think of being up high in front of so many people, as I'd seen it done at First Baptist Church. Here I was not going to be up high, but either way I was not as scared as I would have been even a year ago.
I realized something important as I waited and was assigned a seat, as I watched a long white bird sail above the little lake behind the church, as I sat and watched a few stars come peak through the darkening sky, and as the torches were lit for good lighting, and as the people came out of the church to watch. Good Friday celebrates the day that God told us very clearly "I LOVE YOU!" by giving the most precious gift it is possible to give so that we can be with Him again. And to go through with water baptism is to exclaim "I LOVE YOU, TOO! AND I ALWAYS WILL!" It is a public confession of faith, a testifying to the fact that God has saved me, and it is an opportunity to make a public promise that I will never hide that fact, and that Jesus has made me His follower. I encourage all believers to be baptized in water. I encourage all people to believe in Jesus Christ.
On Good Friday He died, and in no easy way. In one of my favorite books, "The Case for Christ" by Lee Strobel, one of the interviewed professors explained the medical details involved in the particularly terrible way in which Jesus was killed. From the four Gospels we know what happens to Him. He is betrayed, interrogated, slapped, spit upon, humiliated, mocked, whipped, whipped, and whipped. He is forced to carry His cross as far as He can, bleeding and buised and His heart aching so that you can almost hear Him gasp and scream when you read His words "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do!" They put nails, like 5 inches long, through His wrists, where the central, most sensitive nerve of the hand is located. His feet, too. And the put the crown of thorns on His sweet head, and yelled at Him and hurt Him in every way they could. All His friends were gone, and He was dying in all kinds of pain, and He had never done anything wrong.
Many people don't know exactly what kills a person who is being crucified. With His arms pulled back, He was having a terrible time trying to breath. He had to keep pushing Himself upward on His nailed-through feet to make room for air in His lungs. With all this blood loss and strain, eventually He was no longer physically able to do that anymore, and His heart rate began to be uneven. So He died, after so much suffering, from cardiac arrest. Some of His last words were "My God, My God, Why have You forsaken Me?" These words usually confuse alot of people, and they confused me too... until I found them in the Old Testament! I just love it when I find stuff about Jesus written in there, from way before he was in the world. It's just awesome. Psalm 22 begins with the exact same phrase, and it goes on to describe the state of the Sufferer: He is being mocked, He is thirsty and disjointed, His hands and feet are pierced, His clothing has been divided among those who are hurting Him. These are all things that are happening to the Lord Jesus! Here in a Psalm, hundreds of years old before the event even occurred. I just love God. The Psalm ends with the suffering Person finding peace and declaring that He will continually praise God for the fact that He has answered Him. So I don't think those words mean "I give up," or "What's the deal?" I think they are a reference to the fact that God is victorious and faithful, even when all hope seems to have evaporated. Jesus didn't have a Bible open in front of Him as He was breathing His last breaths. He gave us this reference to help us figure this out. God knows about pain, see? He has had the pain of torture, and He has had the pain of seeing His children run away and not come back, though He dies to bring them home. So many do not come back. He knows pain, and despite the pain He is and will always be victorious, despite His suffering, and despite yours.
I have that page marked in the Bible. Right next door to my favorite Psalm, number 19. You should go find Psalm 22, and then go read Mark 14-16 all the way through.
So on Good Friday, April 2, 2010, upon my confession of faith I was baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. I go down into the water, and I come up out of the water, and find Jenny and hug her, sopping wet, very excited.
Today is Easter, and guess who isn't dead anymore? Jesus Christ, that's who! Now take a fork and eat that, devil! Who's the boss? "It is finished." You know that's right. So Jesus wins! I love this.
This Easter has been wonderful. I got to attend Southpoint's Easter sermon, and my family brought Jake, Isabelle's boyfriend. And later my whole gorgeous family got to meet at a park and eat abundant food and blow bubbles and celebrate three different birthdays. Happy birhday to Grandpa, to Aunt Jody, and to baby Molly, all recently a year older. I have been given a remarkably beautiful family, and I am grateful to God for their safety and health and that we can all share a flawless blue Easter day, possibly the warmest day thus far in the year.
Happy Easter, everybody. Go tell your family you love them, and go tell God 'Thank You!' There is no greater love than this, and nobody is so worthy of thanks and praise as our God.
A few weeks ago I blogged to you about how I talked to Jenny White about the nature of water baptism, and how she explained that it is a public demonstration of a believer's faith in Christ. I told you that the day after I talked to her about it, there was an event posted in Southpoint's slide show that said water baptisms were to happen on April 2, 2010, right after the Good Friday service. Well I signed up for that a week or two after I first saw the slide, and this week I have been water baptized.
Before the Good Friday Service maybe thirty or forty people sat in the mandatory class meant to remind us of what water baptism is for: it demonstrates our commitment to live a resurrected life, since, having been saved by grace, we are alive in the Spirit and dead to sin. Having been freed from sin, we are enslaved to righteousness. Mr. Eric reminded us all about this and then led us outside to the baptism pool to show us where it would be happening. I tested the water with my hand. It was very comfortably warm. The whole sky was smooth and blue, and perfect winds were brushing by us. God gave us the perfect evening to be baptized: not too cold, and not too hot either. We turned around and reentered the church building, and soon the service started.
The first song we sang before the service is one I have known for a little longer than I have been saved. I think it has been about five years. It was "Here I am to Worship," and I knew practically all of the words. It is very appropriate for Good Friday, as well as any day: "Lord of the earth, You stepped down into darkness. Opened my eyes let me see. Beauty that made this heart adore You, hope of a life spent with You..." I love it. We sang and sang. They were really wonderful songs. There was also "Above All," which I did not know before. "Crucified, laid behind a stone. You lived to die rejected and alone. And like a rose trampled on the ground You took the fall and thought of me above all." It's important to remember that we cannot for the life of us save our own lives, and we cannot fill the hole in our hearts with anything besides God. He made us to want Him, and He made it so that we can get to Him. That was no easy thing. But, as Pastor Russ often says, God was never so in control, so strong, so powerful, so glorious and so victorious, as when He Himself, Jesus Christ, God-in-Man, was dying for us. He never had to, and you know He could have told the angels to come wipe everybody out and rescue Him, but He didn't. He died, because He knew that it was what He was supposed to do. God did what God wanted Him to do. All to get us back, all to get me back, all to get you back, because He loves us. That's how we know we can never be good enough by ourselves: He went to such great lengths to unify us with Him by such means as we could never produce on our own part, no matter what we do.
When we were done singing, Pastor Russ came and discussed the concept of mourning. He explained that believers mourn where Jesus is missing. When we see that He is not inside of somebody we know, we mourn for the person. When the disciples saw that He was dead, they mourned for the missing Jesus, although of course He came back in three days! And we mourn when we see that there is a place in our lives where we have not given Him control. He doesn't want just part of my heart, but all of it. I have been praying to have a heart that desires Him, and nobody else, so fervently that if there is an area in my life where I am trying to run things, and not letting it be His, that I would mourn and let it go. I pray that every day of my life I could work toward loving my God with ALL my heart, soul, and mind, so that I will be willing to let go anything that's getting in the way and holding me back. Youth Pastor Ryan compares those things to treadmills, where you work and fight but do not go forward. This is a race we're running; we need to go somewhere.
I had to leave the sermon early with the others so that I could go change into my dark clothes. When I had changed and gone outside, I marched barefoot in the cool of the settling day toward the baptism area, speaking out loud "You and me, Jesus, You and me, You and me, You and me." I used to be afraid to get baptized. I used to be scared I would drown, or hurt my back being pulled backwards. Also it was just frightening to think of being up high in front of so many people, as I'd seen it done at First Baptist Church. Here I was not going to be up high, but either way I was not as scared as I would have been even a year ago.
I realized something important as I waited and was assigned a seat, as I watched a long white bird sail above the little lake behind the church, as I sat and watched a few stars come peak through the darkening sky, and as the torches were lit for good lighting, and as the people came out of the church to watch. Good Friday celebrates the day that God told us very clearly "I LOVE YOU!" by giving the most precious gift it is possible to give so that we can be with Him again. And to go through with water baptism is to exclaim "I LOVE YOU, TOO! AND I ALWAYS WILL!" It is a public confession of faith, a testifying to the fact that God has saved me, and it is an opportunity to make a public promise that I will never hide that fact, and that Jesus has made me His follower. I encourage all believers to be baptized in water. I encourage all people to believe in Jesus Christ.
On Good Friday He died, and in no easy way. In one of my favorite books, "The Case for Christ" by Lee Strobel, one of the interviewed professors explained the medical details involved in the particularly terrible way in which Jesus was killed. From the four Gospels we know what happens to Him. He is betrayed, interrogated, slapped, spit upon, humiliated, mocked, whipped, whipped, and whipped. He is forced to carry His cross as far as He can, bleeding and buised and His heart aching so that you can almost hear Him gasp and scream when you read His words "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do!" They put nails, like 5 inches long, through His wrists, where the central, most sensitive nerve of the hand is located. His feet, too. And the put the crown of thorns on His sweet head, and yelled at Him and hurt Him in every way they could. All His friends were gone, and He was dying in all kinds of pain, and He had never done anything wrong.
Many people don't know exactly what kills a person who is being crucified. With His arms pulled back, He was having a terrible time trying to breath. He had to keep pushing Himself upward on His nailed-through feet to make room for air in His lungs. With all this blood loss and strain, eventually He was no longer physically able to do that anymore, and His heart rate began to be uneven. So He died, after so much suffering, from cardiac arrest. Some of His last words were "My God, My God, Why have You forsaken Me?" These words usually confuse alot of people, and they confused me too... until I found them in the Old Testament! I just love it when I find stuff about Jesus written in there, from way before he was in the world. It's just awesome. Psalm 22 begins with the exact same phrase, and it goes on to describe the state of the Sufferer: He is being mocked, He is thirsty and disjointed, His hands and feet are pierced, His clothing has been divided among those who are hurting Him. These are all things that are happening to the Lord Jesus! Here in a Psalm, hundreds of years old before the event even occurred. I just love God. The Psalm ends with the suffering Person finding peace and declaring that He will continually praise God for the fact that He has answered Him. So I don't think those words mean "I give up," or "What's the deal?" I think they are a reference to the fact that God is victorious and faithful, even when all hope seems to have evaporated. Jesus didn't have a Bible open in front of Him as He was breathing His last breaths. He gave us this reference to help us figure this out. God knows about pain, see? He has had the pain of torture, and He has had the pain of seeing His children run away and not come back, though He dies to bring them home. So many do not come back. He knows pain, and despite the pain He is and will always be victorious, despite His suffering, and despite yours.
I have that page marked in the Bible. Right next door to my favorite Psalm, number 19. You should go find Psalm 22, and then go read Mark 14-16 all the way through.
So on Good Friday, April 2, 2010, upon my confession of faith I was baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. I go down into the water, and I come up out of the water, and find Jenny and hug her, sopping wet, very excited.
Today is Easter, and guess who isn't dead anymore? Jesus Christ, that's who! Now take a fork and eat that, devil! Who's the boss? "It is finished." You know that's right. So Jesus wins! I love this.
This Easter has been wonderful. I got to attend Southpoint's Easter sermon, and my family brought Jake, Isabelle's boyfriend. And later my whole gorgeous family got to meet at a park and eat abundant food and blow bubbles and celebrate three different birthdays. Happy birhday to Grandpa, to Aunt Jody, and to baby Molly, all recently a year older. I have been given a remarkably beautiful family, and I am grateful to God for their safety and health and that we can all share a flawless blue Easter day, possibly the warmest day thus far in the year.
Happy Easter, everybody. Go tell your family you love them, and go tell God 'Thank You!' There is no greater love than this, and nobody is so worthy of thanks and praise as our God.
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