Tears of Purification

Posted on August 20, 2015 | Leave a comment

2 Corinthians 5:10 & 17
10 for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

My Thoughts:
The key trigger phrases for me this morning were:
• …whether good or bad
• The old has gone, the new is here!
One of the mental images I believe the Holy Spirit has given me is that of finally meeting Christ face to face.  I’ve only shared it a few times and no one seems wowed by it so it may be completely wrong…but I really don’t think so.  I think it disturbs people’s idea of what entering into eternal life with Christ will be like.

In my version, I am wrapped in Jesus” arms prepared for eternity…but first…I see my life for the first time through His reality, like a movie.  Frankly some of what I have to see makes me weep tears of sadness that I missed the mark so many times.  But those are not tears of guilt or punishment, they are the final cleansing.  They are Tears of Purification.  There in Christ’s arms the moment of perfection happens; the purification of my heart, soul, mind and strength for all of eternity.

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Posted in The Real "Me"

Chant Rant

Posted on August 8, 2015 | Leave a comment

We have come through a long, and well-developed, period of esteem building that hasn’t had the effect we’d hoped. It’s a good thing to be capable, to be strong, to be skilled but there’s a falseness to how we’ve promoted that. We’ve outstripped God himself with our motivational chants and as a result we have, and are, a people who do not recognize that we have settled for better when we could have had best. I’m convinced this is our biggest sin; not the things we do or say. I’m also convinced this keeps people away from the life-giving Jesus.
We have settled for words we hoped would build self-esteem and character but they have spiraled out of control inwardly until all that is left is the conflict of our own inner realities and our programmed ideas of how we SHOULD respond to life. It’s no wonder we are stressed. Inside we know our inadequacies and outside we forge onward based on these personal and cultural mantras we need to rethink:
Have it your way
You can do it
Take care of yourself
Accept yourself
You deserve it
Love yourself
Love is never having to say you’re sorry
It’s the real thing
Be true to yourself
Believe in yourself
Feel good about yourself
I’m OK, you’re OK

From the day we’re born finding “the real me” is the task we set out on. Our messages over the years are many but they are not always correct or valuable. Sometimes they seem completely misleading. We are bombarded with basic tools for a reality of success, achievement and pride in our efforts. Those are good and worthy values but they are also part of our struggles.
The messages themselves are a part of the problem but so is our response to them. We need to become aware these motivational message have a downside; leading people to make self-sufficiency their god (with a little “g.”) But there is the big “God” to be considered. He is Sovereign. He is in charge. If we believe that, our quest becomes our opportunity to find ways to transform those messages of success, achievement and pride of accomplishment so they impact hearers in a world-changing way.
Our language of encouragement needs to be transformed from stress producing to stress reducing. No more motivating chants like “you can do it” when they haven’t a clue how, or “have it your way” when it’s obvious they don’t know what that way is. This is culture language that has left us bereft because our inner truth and “fake it ’til you make it” just leave us with a load of stress. We faked it and we didn’t make it; we couldn’t do it. Now what? When did “not getting my way” become failure? When did “need” become weakness? That seems like the biggest hurdle between searchers and Jesus’ promise of abundant life.

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Posted in The Real "Me"

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The Big Picture

Posted on August 3, 2015 | Leave a comment

2 Peter 1:5-7 “ NIV
…For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love.” 8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

My Thoughts:

There is something satisfying about reading Peter’s orderly list of what is needed in my life of faith. It made me think of a jigsaw puzzle; one piece locking into another, each separate but together creating an “all together” whole.  It’s a new puzzle and all the pieces are guaranteed to be there, laid out and waiting to be used.  It’s a personal puzzle, only you can complete it.

The way to begin is to find the pieces that you recognize to form a workable frame.  There may be a few gaps but don’t worry, it will still work.  You just start looking for pieces that match and build on what you started with.  Sometimes it doesn’t come easy though.  It may take a bit of time and hunting to find just one match.  It’s really easy to get sidetracked by that and walk away for a time.  At other times with almost no effort just the right piece turns up and it’s a perfect fit.  Eventually you begin to see the image of what’s to come and that gives you some inspiration.  Speed isn’t required to complete the puzzle but perseverance is essential if you want to complete The Big Picture.

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Be The Gift!

Posted on July 27, 2015 | Leave a comment

John 17:9 – Jesus’ prayer to his Father
“I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours.”

I do understand that Christ is God’s gift to me. I understand how important what I learn from Jesus is to my life’s purpose and quality.  I understand my image relates to his impact in this world.  …But I’ve also been well trained by life that I have to do what’s necessary to prepare well so I can be a credit to Christ as his follower.

That’s what makes this one little phrase so very special.  What I am prepared to do is not the reason I’m related to Christ.  It’s not that I’m  a student, or because he improves the quality and purpose of my life, or even because I want to be his companion, although those thing are surely true. I am under the prayerful protection of  Christ today simply because God has given me to him.   I am God’s gift to Jesus!!!  Wow,  think of it, you are God’s gift to Jesus too!!!   We can appreciate all the things our heart leads us to do for Christ but this is the most important thing we’ll ever have to offer back to him..to simply Be The Gift!

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Posted in Jesus' Words, John

Chosen

Posted on July 23, 2015 | Leave a comment

1 Peter 2:2-5, & 9
2 Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, 3 now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. 4 As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him— 5 you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ

…9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

My Thoughts:
Chosen…That one word was part of the first real question I ever answered about faith at my very first Bible study…”who are the chosen?”  I answered the “Israelites,” a right answer to be sure, but not the one the pastor was aiming for. He handled it with a lot of tactful grace. I see that now, not then though.  It almost became my stopping point instead of my starting point. I was an adult AND a church-goer …and I got the answer wrong!

In my self-imposed humiliation at being so ignorant, I just wanted to hide. I decided not to go back.  I suspect the Holy Spirit used that awareness of my own ignorance to spur me on.  I did go back the next week. I did NOT want to be ignorant!  I’m sure I was a lot more teachable at that point.

Here I am 40-plus years later; one living stone still being built into a spiritual house.  I’ve taken God at his word that I am his “special possession;” that I may blog the praises of him who called me away from humiliation and ignorance into the wonderful possibilities he’s created for me…Chosen. Praise the Lord!

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The Day God Visited the Moon

Posted on July 20, 2015 | Leave a comment

On July 20, 1969 as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin prepared to take “one small step for man,” Aldrin wanted to commemorate the moment in a way he found  most personally meaningful — by taking communion.

Aldrin, a church elder at Webster Presbyterian Church in Webster, Texas, at the time, spoke to his pastor Dean Woodruff to try to find a way to symbolize the wonder and awe of the moon landing a few weeks before lift-off. Aldrin said, “We wanted to express our feeling that what man was doing in this mission transcended electronics and computers and rockets.”

The communion bread and wine, symbols of everyday life, seemed to be a fitting way to commemorate the extraordinary moment. Woodruff equipped Aldrin with a piece of communion bread, a sip of wine, and a tiny silver chalice which he brought aboard as part of the few personal items each astronaut is allowed.

Aldrin wrote about the experience a year later, for Guideposts magazine:
“In a little while after our scheduled meal period, Neil would give the signal to step down the ladder onto the powdery surface of the moon. Now was the moment for communion.

So I unstowed the elements in their flight packets. I put them and the scripture reading on the little table in front of the abort guidance system computer.

Then I called back to Houston.

“Houston, this is Eagle. This is the LM Pilot speaking. I would like to request a few moments of silence. I would like to invite each person listening in, wherever and whomever he may be, to contemplate for a moment the events of the past few hours and to invite each person listening, wherever and whomever he may be, to contemplate for a moment the events of the past few hours and to give thanks in his own individual way.”

In the radio blackout I opened the little plastic packages which contained bread and wine.

I poured the wine into the chalice our church had given me. In the one-sixth gravity of the moon the wine curled slowly and gracefully up the side of the cup. It was interesting to think that the very first liquid ever poured on the moon, and the first food eaten there, were communion elements.

Before taking communion, Aldrin silently read a passage from the Bible, which he had hand written on a piece of paper: “I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, and I in him, will bear much fruit; for you can do nothing without me” (John 15:5).

This is the image of his note he read from The Day God Visited the Moon.

 

 

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Posted in God & the Moon, Real Life

Three Versions, Three Verses

Posted on July 19, 2015 | Leave a comment

Hebrews 1:1-3
NIV
1 In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. 3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.
MSG
1 1-3 Going through a long line of prophets, God has been addressing our ancestors in different ways for centuries. Recently he spoke to us directly through his Son. By his Son, God created the world in the beginning, and it will all belong to the Son at the end. This Son perfectly mirrors God, and is stamped with God’s nature. He holds everything together by what he says—powerful words!
NASB
1 God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways,2 in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. 3 And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.

My Synopsis Verse by Verse:
1. God spoke in the past through inspired teachers [prophets], often, in various, different ways, giving us parts of the whole [portions].  Their words were like hearsay evidence.
2. Now Jesus is our live connection to God’s presence.  He was there with God in the beginning of forever and he will be there as long as forever lasts.
3. Through Jesus we finally understand what the God we’ve never seen is like. He speaks to us directly with words from God so powerful they can actually make everything about us fit exactly into God’s plan.  Then God says “sit here Son and tell me all about them.”

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Posted in Hebrews

Goodbye Mobius! Hello Possibilities!

Posted on July 18, 2015 | Leave a comment

Ecclesiastes 1:12-18
12  I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13 I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens. What a heavy burden God has laid on mankind! 14 I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.  15 What is crooked cannot be straightened; what is lacking cannot be counted.  16 I said to myself, “Look, I have increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me; I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge.” 17 Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind.  18 For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief.

My Thoughts:
I’m a knitter and one of the fads in the last couple of years has been the mobius scarf which is knit as a continuous circle with a twist in it.  It uses a particular method of knitting that actually begins with a double ring cast-on row joined as a circle in the center of the scarf.  As you knit you are adding rows to each side of center without ever turning your work or doing anything other that just knitting round and round over and over.

250px-Möbius_stripA mobius can be made with a strip of paper with one twist and the ends taped together to form a circle. If an ant were to crawl along the edge  of this strip, it would return to its starting point having traveled the entire length of both top and bottom edges of the original strip without ever crossing over the width of the paper strip and not really going anywhere at all. When I read Solomon’s words of frustration, they reminded me of that poor ant on the mobius;  going round and round, over and over, without really going anywhere at all.

I have a theory about Solomon’s desire to try to figure everything out. It goes back to the Garden of Eden. I think that’s where his frustration began and ours too. The moment those first two people decided they could take access to God’s protected knowledge, everything changed for all of us. The linear journey God had planned for his creation – to walk beside him all our life into possibilities and fullness stretching out before us, got twisted into a mobius-like cycle instead.

That’s just my theory and my own quirky observation but I think there may be truth there.  Here’s undisputed New Testament truth from Jesus himself though, in John 10:10  “I have come in order that you might have life—life in all its fullness.”
Goodby mobius!  Hello possibilities!

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Posted in Ecclesiastes, Jesus' Words

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True Confessions

Posted on July 14, 2015 | Leave a comment

I Corinthians 15:10 & 11 TLB
10 But whatever I am now it is all because God poured out such kindness and grace upon me—and not without results: for I have worked harder than all the other apostles, yet actually I wasn’t doing it, but God working in me, to bless me. 11 It makes no difference who worked the hardest, I or they; the important thing is that we preached the Gospel to you and you believed it.

My Thoughts:
That phrase “God poured out such kindness and grace upon me” got me thinking about grace being an element of confession.  That led to wanting to make a list of what I should confess but that wasn’t going well.   Then I read verse 10  again and suddenly my focus changed from the first part of the phrase to the last part “—and not without results.”  It changed my whole idea about what I should be confessing and finally led to this:

• IF my confession begins to sound like the list of what God hasn’t done, isn’t that an insult to Him?
• IF my confession is a list of things I don’t like about myself, isn’t that an insult to what He has done?
• IF “the” enemy can, he’ll use those words to destroy my confidence that God is working, and steal the grace from my confession.

• THEN  I’ll give up my list!   God already knows the things that need changing in my life and He’s promised to remove them.  I’ll go for the short and sweet version, the confession of grace.
I just need more of you, Lord.

That’s a True Confession.

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Posted in 1 Corinthians

Growing Season

Posted on July 13, 2015 | Leave a comment

I Corinthians 10:1-4
For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. 2 They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. 3 They all ate the same spiritual food 4 and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. 5 Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.

My Thoughts:
The mention of the Israelites crossing the Red Sea in I Corinthians 10:2 and baptism is interesting to me. No water involved here, the sea had parted, but something deep and vital happened that created an opportunity for them to respond so their lives could be saved and changed forever. Somehow many of them missed it’s significance and were lost anyway. It got me thinking.

Baptism is a common ritual today but what if there’s more to the story than the act itself?  What if it’s one of the “seeds” that Jesus talked about in his Parable of the Sower and it’s planted at Baptism? Any gardener knows tending to the soil, adding soil amendments if needed and keeping it watered and weeded, is not just a one time thing. During the Growing Season it has to happen over and over in order to finally enjoy the harvest of what’s been planted. This is a new slant to my thinking – Celebrate the ritual, celebrate the day, celebrate the planting but don’t forget to tend the garden. That’s how fruit happens.

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Posted in 1 Corinthians, Baptism