Scared Romance

Eleven Resurrection Appearances

2008-03-23T14:08:00.000-07:00

I came across this list of the eleven resurrection appearances recounted in the Bible. I thought it would be a good meditation for us this Easter Sunday.

To Mary of Magdalene

(Mark 16:9-11; John 20:10-18)
To the other women at the tomb

(Matthew 28:8-10)
To Peter in Jerusalem

(Luke 24:34)
To the two travelers on the road

(Mark 16:12,13)
To eleven disciples behind closed doors

(Mark 16:14; Luke 24:36-43; John 20:19-25)
To all the disciples (with Thomas and excluding Judas Iscariot)

(John 20:26-31; 1 Corinthians 15:5)
To seven disciples while fishing

(John 21:1-4)
To eleven disciples on the mountain

(Matthew 28:16-20)
To a crowd of 500

(1 Corinthians 15:6)
To His brother James

(1 Corinthians 15:7)
To those who watched Jesus ascend into Heaven

(Luke 24:44-51; Acts 1:3-8)

1 Corinthians 15:13-17

ParaphrasedIf there isn't resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised either. If Christ was not raised, then all our preaching is useless, and trust in God is useless. And we apostles would all be lying about God, for we have said that God raised Christ from the grave, but that can’t be true if there isn't a resurrection of the dead. . And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless, and you are still under condemnation for your sins.

Icons: So the Servant of God

2008-03-22T04:18:00.000-07:00

While I was waiting for Matt to get through surgery, recovery, and to a room Thursday, I had LOTS of time to read (about 5 hours!) I found a quiet spot and rotated through the books I had brought with me: The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (awesome, awesome book), Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell, and Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith & Art by Madeleine L’Engle. I got lots of good reading done! Walking on Water had a very interesting chapter titled ”Icons of the True” that I really enjoyed. Here’s a rather long excerpt about icons that I’ve found myself pondering over since I’ve read it…especially the quote by Francis of Assisi:

It is impossible for an artist to attempt a graphic reproduction of Jesus in any way that is meant to be literal. I sympathize with the Hassidic teaching that it is wrong to try in any way to make pictures of God or his prophets. The Muslims have this philosophy, too, hence the intricate, nonrepresentational designs on the mosques.

But in a way both miss the point which the Eastern Orthodox artists are taught when they study the painting of icons. The figure on the icon is not meant to represent literally what Peter or John or any of the apostles looked like, nor what Mary looked like, or the child, Jesus. But, the orthodox painter feels, Jesus of Nazareth did not walk around Galilee faceless. The icon of Jesus may not look like the man Jesus two thousand years ago, but it represents some quality of Jesus, or his mother, or his followers, and so becomes an open window through which we can be given a new glimpse of the love of God. Icons are painted with firm discipline, much prayer, and anonymity. In this way the iconographer is enabled to get out of the way, to listen, to serve the work.

An icon is a symbol, rather than a sign. A sign may point the way to something, such as: Athens – 10 Kilometers. But the sign is not Athens, even when we reach the city limits and read Athens. A symbol, however, unlike a sign, contains within it some quality of what it represents. An icon of the Annunciation, for instance, does more than point to the angel and the girl; it contains, for us, some of Mary’s acceptance and obedience, and so affects our own ability to accept, to obey.

Francis of Assisi says that “In pictures of God and the blessed Virgin painted on wood, God and the blessed Virgin are held in mind, yet the wood and the painting ascribe nothing to themselves, because they are just wood and paint; so the servant of God is a kind of painting, that is, a creature of God in which God is honored for the sake of his benefits. But he ought to ascribe nothing to himself, just like the wood or the painting, but should render honor and glory to God alone.”

(From Walking on Water by Madeleine L’Engle)

I loved “so the servant of God is a kind of painting, that is, a creature of God in which God is honored for the sake of his benefits.” Instead of wood and paint, I am flesh and blood, which God uses as a canvas to show His glory so I and others can see and know Him better.

I can ascribe nothing to myself – talents, blessings, gifts – they are all of God used to reveal more of Himself both to me and through me. Even my sufferings and trials, these are just more paint layered on my life that I might know my God more and more and be able to reflect Him maybe just a little more clearly to others.

Finding Cosmos in Chaos

2008-03-20T04:22:00.000-07:00

One of my most favorite authors is Madeleine L’Engle and I picked up a book by her at the used bookstore in Greensboro Saturday called Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art. Here’s a short excerpt I read this morning that made me think about the definition of Christian art….Madeleine’s idea of finding cosmos in chaos made me think about not only art, but life in general. In the chaos of my life, if I pause and try to hear what God is saying to me, I can sometimes see the cosmos (beauty, His plan) in it. May the ears of our ears awake and the eyes of our eyes open to the wonder of God’s love for us today.

Leonard Bernstein tells me more than the dictionary when he says that for him music is cosmos in chaos. That has the ring of truth in my ears, and sparks my creative imagination. And it is true not only of music; all art is cosmos, cosmos found within chaos. At least all Christian art (by which I mean all true art, and I’ll go deeper into this later) is cosmos in chaos. There’s some modern art, in all disciplines, which is not; some artists look at the world around them and see chaos, and instead of discovering cosmos, they reproduce chaos, on canvas, in music, in words. As far as I can see, the reproduction of chaos is neither art, nor is it Christian.

e.e. cummings lauds the beauty of cosmos as he sings,

I who have died am alive again today,
And this is the sun’s birthday, this is the birth
Day of life and love and wings; and of the gay
Great happening illimitably earth

Now the ears of my ears are awake and
Now the eyes of my eyes are opened

And the psalmist sings, “O taste and see how gracious the Lord is: blessed is the man who trusteth in him” and “The heavens declare the glory of God: and the firmament showeth his handiwork…”

Christ the Lamb

2008-03-18T18:09:00.001-07:00

Christ is often symbolized as a lamb in Christian thought ad literature. The symbol derives from the Old Testament sacrificial system, in which lambs were slaughtered as a sacrifice for sin. Jesus became the Lamb of God who was offered as a sacrifice to take away the sin of all the world (John 1:36).

The story is told of a traveler who looked for unusual things in the cities he visited. During a tour of a town one day, he was attracted by a remarkable spire over a public building. Turning to see it better, he noticed, about two-thirds of the way up, a stone figure of a lamb on the wall.

The man stopped a passerby, to ask if there was some significance to the lamb’s stone replica. Told that it marked the place from which a workman lost his balance and fell while the building was under construction, the traveler inquired, “Was he killed?”

“No,” said the local resident, “it was a miracle. When his friends hurried down, expecting to find the mangled body on the pavement, there he was, shaken and badly bruised, but with hardly a bone broken. It happened that several lambs were on their way to slaughter, and as the mason fell, he landed on the back of one of them. The lamb was killed, of course, but his soft body broke the mason’s fall and saved his life. The builder was so impressed with the miracle that he had the stone lamb placed there, as a lasting tribute.

By Robert E. Coleman as told in The Book of Jesus

Joy and Sorrow

2008-03-16T09:56:00.000-07:00

Today is the day we remember Christ riding into Jerusalem on a donkey and the crowd shouting “Hosanna!” But it also the time to remember that this same crowd later shouted “Crucify him!” It would be easier for us to just fast forward through this week during which we traditionally remember Christ’s passion and crucifixion to the next Sunday, Easter, when we celebrate His joyful resurrection.

But to leap to Christ’s resurrection would cause us to skip over His pain and sorrow. And remembering those things help us to truly understand and appreciate the joy He has brought to us.

Joy and Sorrow
by Kahlil Gibran

Then a woman said, 'Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.'
And he answered:
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, 'Joy is greater than sorrow,' and others say, 'Nay, sorrow is the greater.'
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.
Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.
When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.

Matthew 21:1-9
1As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2saying to them, "Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. 3If anyone says anything to you, tell him that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away."
4This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:

5"Say to the Daughter of Zion,

'See, your king comes to you,

gentle and riding on a donkey,

on a colt, the foal of a donkey.' "

6The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. 7They brought the donkey and the colt, placed their cloaks on them, and Jesus sat on them. 8A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,

"Hosanna to the Son of David!"

"Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!"

"Hosanna in the highest!"

Matthew 27:20-26
20But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus executed.

21"Which of the two do you want me to release to you?" asked the governor. "Barabbas," they answered.

22"What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called Christ?" Pilate asked. They all answered, "Crucify him!"

23"Why? What crime has he committed?" asked Pilate. But they shouted all the louder, "Crucify him!"

24When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. "I am innocent of this man's blood," he said. "It is your responsibility!"

25All the people answered, "Let his blood be on us and on our children!"

26Then he released Barabbas to them. But he had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.

Darkness That Can Be Felt

2008-03-15T17:12:00.000-07:00

One of the daily readings from the Book of Common Prayer’s Lectionary today was Exodus 10:21 – 11:8. (I have a feed on my personal blog that gives the daily scripture readings if anyone is interested.) It’s the story of the second-to-last plague on Egypt – the plague of darkness.

I have mulled over the first two verses today as I was driving home….darkness that can be felt…

Exodus 10:21-23
Then the LORD said to Moses, "Stretch out your hand toward the sky so that darkness will spread over Egypt—darkness that can be felt." So Moses stretched out his hand toward the sky, and total darkness covered all Egypt for three days. No one could see anyone else or leave his place for three days. Yet all the Israelites had light in the places where they lived.

There have been times that I have been immersed in darkness that was so thick and deep and scary that it seemed like it had a texture and taste of its own…that it filled every nook and cranny in my heart and mind….that it filled the very air I breathed. I sucked it inside myself with each breath I took. It has been at those times that I have known despair. Despair is defined as “the feeling that everything is wrong and nothing will turn out well.”

As Christians, we know that there is indeed something wrong in this world that we live. There is sin, there is a prince of this world that, though defeated, is still waging battles that cause us deep, deep injury. Arrows get shot our way. So – the first part of the definition, the feeling that everything is wrong, is not all that unreasonable to me. The more I live, the more I see that things are not as they should be.

But the second part of the definition, and nothing will turn out well, is where I stray into sin. When I believe that nothing will turn out well, then I am failing to trust in God, to believe that He means good for me. I believe that He is not good, or at least He is not good for me. Maybe He is good for others, but not me. Or maybe He has meant good for me at other times, but surely He has made a mistake this time. Surely there is no way that anything will ever be right again.

More than once, God has proven me wrong in my despair.

And I have had to repent.

The other part of this passage that I kept coming to today was “Yet all the Israelites had light in the places where they lived.” The Bible tells me that Christ lives in my heart and that He is the Light of the world. It is only with Him that I can find light when the darkness of despair is upon me. To live with Christ in my heart…that is my prayer.

Journeying

2008-03-09T15:52:00.000-07:00

I’m picking my way through a book called The Celtic Way of Prayer by Esther De Waal. The first chapter is titled “Journeying.” Here’s a few passages for you today:

If we say yes to Christ’s call to follow him, our Christian discipleship asks of us to follow a man who had nowhere to lay his head. Christ himself is the Way and his followers are people of the Way. Just as he entered the wilderness, like Moses and the children of Israel, and made his own journey through life to death and resurrection and new life, so that pattern is inescapable for us all. And if in the model we see Christ encountering temptation and hardship, we, his followers, should not expect anything less.

Bless to me, O God,
The earth beneath my foot
Bless to me, O God,
The path whereon I go.
Celtic Journey-Prayer

This day I call to me;
God’s strength to direct me,
God’s power to sustain me,
God’s wisdom to guide me,
God’s vision to light me,
God’s ear to my hearing,
God’s word to my speaking,
God’s hand to uphold me,
God’s pathway before me,
God’s shield to protect me,
God’s legions to save me:
from snares of the demons,
from evil enticements,
from failings of nature,
from one man or many
that seek to destroy me,
anear or afar.
St. Patrick

Sacrament of Tears

2008-03-08T15:49:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I read more from Ken Gire’s Intense Moments with the Savior. The Scripture he went through was Luke 19:28-44 when Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey and then cried over the city as He looked over it. Here’s part of the prayer that was at the end of the devotion…I think this is a good prayer for all of us as we each go through different trials and suffering.

Luke 19:41-44
41As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it 42and said, "If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. 43The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. 44They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you."

Isaiah 53:2-4
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,

and like a root out of dry ground.

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,

nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by men,

a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.

Like one from whom men hide their faces

he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
4 Surely he took up our infirmities

and carried our sorrows,

yet we considered him stricken by God,

smitten by him, and afflicted.

Dear Jesus –

I pray for that world which your Father cradles so closely to His heart. A world that is on the brink of breaking apart. A world that is war-torn and weary. A world that knows so little of the peace you have to offer.

Help me to know that peace, O Lord, especially in my suffering.

Help me to understand the dark secret of love, the secret that only suffering can reveal: that if I love enough and deeply enough, someday my heart will be broken.

As yours was broken.

Isaiah prophesied you would live among us as a brokenhearted man, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.

Help me to realize there are things, like the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy, that can only come to pass through suffering. I know character is one of them. And compassion is another. What are the others, Lord? Show me, please, so my suffering might be easier to bear.

Help me to understand that there is a communion with you that can only be shared through the sacrament of tears. And that the elements of that eucharist come from the crushing experiences of life.

And as I bend my knees to partake of those elements, draw me close…hold me tight…give me peace…Amen.

The Courtyard of My Heart

2008-03-06T15:43:00.000-08:00

Shine, Jesus, shine.

Shine your light in every corner of my heart. Search every cupboard. Open every door to every closet. And bring whatever evil is hidden there out in the open.

Search me, O God, and know my heart. See if there is in me any small trace of hypocrisy, any small bit of impurity, any small beginnings of greed or materialism. Wash me, O Lord, and make me clean.

Forgive me for how I have overlooked the many small but pervasive influences that threatened to make a doughy mess of my life. For the small talk that grew into gossip. For the slight stretching of the truth that grew into a lie. For the silent insecurities that grew into jealousies that grew into criticisms of others.

Forgive me for all I have tolerated in the courtyards of my life. For the way I have allowed sacred things to become profaned. For the way I have allowed prayer to be pushed to the far corners of my life.

Come, Lord Jesus. Come to the temple of my heart. Overturn the tables. Drive out the money changers. And do what you have to do to make it a place of prayer. Amen.

(From Ken Gire)

Four Ways to Battle Bitterness by Battling Unbelief

2008-03-04T15:35:00.000-08:00

1. Don't Ignore the Good Advice of the Doctor
The first way to battle the unbelief of bitterness is very basic: namely, consider what the Doctor says good advice. If the Great Physician says, "Put away anger," don't ignore the counsel. Put it in your mind and resolve to keep it. That's what you do if you trust your Doctor.

"But now you must rid your selves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, filthy language" (Col. 3:8).

2. Cherish Being Forgiven by God
The second way to battle the unbelief of bitterness is to really cherish being forgiven by God. Underline the word cherish.

Paul said in Ephesians 4:32, "Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you." In other words, being forgiven by God should have a powerful effect on our being forgiving people and not hold grudges, and not being bitter.

How does being forgiven make you a forgiving person? We answer: by faith in our being forgiven. By believing that we are forgiven.

You can go on holding a grudge if your faith simply means you are off the hook. But if faith means standing in awe of being forgiven by God, then you can't go on holding a grudge. You have fallen in love with mercy. It's your life. So you battle bitterness by fighting for the faith that stands in awe of God's forgiveness of your sins.

3. Trust That God's Justice Will Prevail
The third way to battle the unbelief of bitterness is to trust that God's justice will prevail.
One cause of bitterness is the feeling that you have been wronged by someone. They have lied about you, or stolen from you, or been unfaithful to you, or let you down, or rejected you. And you get this feeling not only that you should not have been hurt, but that they should be punished. And you may be right.

And in feeling right you dwell on the injustice of it. You go over it again and again in your mind, and it chews at your insides. You think of things you might say to put them in their place. You think of things you could do to show others their true colors.

Now God is not pleased by this bitterness. And the reason he's not is because it comes from unbelief in the certainty that God's justice will prevail.

Romans 12:19 says, "Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God; for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.'"

What this text says is that God has made a promise that he himself will repay all wrongs in perfect measure. His justice will prevail. No wrong has escaped his notice. He sees its evil far better than you do. He hates it far more than you do. And he claims the right to take vengeance.
Do you believe this promise? Do you trust God to settle accounts for you far more justly than you could ever settle them? If you do, this text says, you will stop savoring revenge.

No one was wronged worse than Jesus. No one got a raw deal as bad as his. No one was abused more. No one was rejected more. And no one was as innocent. So what did he do when his heart filled with moral indignation?

When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered he did not threaten; but he trusted to him who judges justly.

4. Trust God's Purpose to Turn It for Your Good
The final way to battle the unbelief of bitterness is to trust God's purpose to turn the cause of your anger for your good.

1 Peter 1:6–7 says, "For a little while you may have to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold which though perishable is tested by fire, may redound to praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ."

In other words, God allows trials in our lives that could make us very angry. If they couldn't, they wouldn't be trials. But the reason he does is to refine our faith the way gold is refined by fire.

This means that the battle against bitterness in the midst of trial is nothing other than the battle against unbelief. Will we look to the sovereign goodness of God, and believe that he means us good in the refining fire? Or will we surrender to unbelief, and let bitterness grow?

(From John Piper)

A Prayer for the Ephesians

2008-03-03T16:00:00.000-08:00

A Prayer for the Ephesians (and us in the Sandhills!)

Ephesians 3:14-21

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge-that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

God's love is so wide it completely covers and shelters us.
God's love is so long it started before we were born and will last an eternity.
God's love is so high that it is infinite in reach.
God's love is so deep that it meets us even in the darkest depths of despair.

Remember, we can never out-imagine God.
Prayers for the power to grasp His great love for us.

In Him,
Sondie

Opening My Treasure

2008-03-02T15:28:00.000-08:00

Matthew 2:10-11
When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh.

I started a new devotional book I picked up at a used book store by Ken Gire. It's called Intense Moments with the Savior. The first devotion is based on Matthew chapter 2...the story of the Maggi coming to Jerusalem looking for the King of the Jews, finding Him in Bethlehem, worshipping and presenting their gifts to Him, Herod's attempt to kill Jesus, and Mary and Joseph's flight to Egypt. This is a jam-packed chapter!

One thing that Gire's devotion made me think about that I had never put together before was that the Maggi's gifts were probably the resource Mary and Joseph used to fund their flight to Egypt. This was not a wealthy family and to flee to a foreign country would require food and shelter until Joseph could find work to provide for his tiny family. In a dream Joseph is told to take Mary and Jesus to Egypt, and he must have woke to realize that God had provided the means through these gifts of gold, incense and myrrh. God made the command and He had already provided the means. He is our Provider God.

Reading through the chapter again, I noticed something else. In verse 10, Matthew tells us that the Maggi bowed down and worshipped Jesus. In verse 11, they opened their treasures and presented Him with their gifts. That phrase "opened their treasures" caught my attention. I could just see these men opening these gifts that they had stowed away for the long trip from their home to Bethlehem...tucked away, protected from damage and theft.

And the questions came to me, "Have I opened my treasures to God? What are my treasures that I've kept locked away, safely storing them for my journey? What is it that I need to open up and give to God today? "

The answer followed quickly - my church has been a secret treasure, one that I've protected and hidden. Having lost the church family that I had as a child, I've so treasured finding this one. I have a hard time imagining God's presence at another place - to the point that I am always surprised when I visit another church while traveling and feel His presence there.

I must open my treasures to God, offer them to Him, and wait to see what He will do with it...How He will use it as a resource for His will to be done. I must ask forgiveness for making my church more about being a safe haven for me than about being a place where I can worship and serve my King.

That I might bow down, worship, and open my treasure...that's my prayer for today.

A Candle Burning

2008-02-29T15:22:00.000-08:00

This morning I started a devotion book by Ken Gire, the same author of the book I read an excerpt from for us last night, Windows of the Soul. This book is called Intense moments with the Savior. Here’s a passage from the introduction:

“…We learn to feel in much the same way. We learn to feel when our faith is tested in some wilderness. When our best-laid plans go awry and our bravest prayers go unanswered. When we’re belittled by a crowd or betrayed by a colleague. When we’re deserted by our friends or done in by our enemies.

Whether it’s a single thorn in the flesh or a crown of them mashed on our heads, suffering teaches us to feel.

But learning to feel carries with it both a blessing and a curse: a blessing, because those feelings are what lead us out of ourselves; a curse, because once out we can never again go back and enjoy the simple pleasures of a self-absorbed life. For suffering sensitizes us not only to the world around us, which is needy, but to the world within us which is needier still, and ultimately to the world beyond us, which we long for in so many ways. Yet in so few ways do we ever fully realize it.

Until we suffer.

Then we realize that this is not our home, that our home is with him who suffered and died and left this earth to prepare a place for us. Once we understand that and who it is that keeps a candle burning for us in the window, then the road ahead, however long, however difficult, is infinitely easier to travel.”

- Ken Gire (Intense Moments with the Savior)

To Whom Else Can I Go?

2008-02-27T15:20:00.000-08:00

My eyes, my eyes
have seen the King.
The vision of His beauty
has pierced me deep within.
To whom else can I go?

My heart, my heart
desires Him.
He’s touched something inside of me
that’s now reaching out for Him.
And I know that I must go.

My God is my love,
my guard, my healing one;
my bright love
is my merciful Lord;
my sweet love is Christ;
His heart is my delight;
All my love are You,
O King of glory.
Amen.

(From Celtic Daily Prayer)

The Basin and the Towel

2008-02-26T15:18:00.000-08:00

In an upstairs room a parable
is just about to come alive;
and while they bicker about who’s best
with a painful glance He’ll silently rise.
Their Savior-servant must show them how,
through the will of the water
and the tenderness of the towel.

And the call is to community,
the impoverished power that sets the soul free
in humility to take the vow
that day after day
we must take up the basin and the towel.

In any ordinary place,
on any ordinary day,
the parable can live again
when one will kneel and one will yield.
Our Saviour-servant must show us how,
through the will of the water
and the tenderness of the towel.

And the space between ourselves, sometimes,
is more than the distance between the stars.
By the fragile bridge of the servant’s bow,
we take up the basin and the towel.

And the call is to community,
the impoverished power that sets the soul free
in humility to take the vow
that day after day
we must take up the basin:
and the call is to community;
and day after day
we must take up the basin and the towel.

Michael Card

Conclusion

2008-02-25T15:15:00.000-08:00

Christ Speaks
I told you at the start, my other self,
my life was not complete
until I crowned it by my death.
Your “way” is not complete
unless you crown it by your life.

Accept each moment as it comes to you,
with faith and trust
that all that happens has my mark on it.
A simple fiat, this is all it takes;
a breathing in your heart,
“I will it, Lord.”

So seek me not in far-off places.
I am close at hand.
Your workbench, office, kitchen,
these are altars
where you offer love.
And I am with you there.

Go now! Take up your cross
and with your life
complete your way.

(From Everyone’s Way of the Cross by Clarence Enzler)

Jesus is Buried

2008-02-24T15:56:00.000-08:00

(Art by Peter Howson)

Christ Speaks
So ends my mortal life.

But now another life begins
for Mary,
and for Magdalen,
for Peter and for John,
and you.

My life’s work is done.
My work within and through my church
must now commence.

I look to you, my other self.

Day in, day out, from this time forth,
be my apostle –
victim –
saint.

I Reply
My Jesus, Lord,
You know my spirit is as willing
as my flesh is weak.

The teaching you could not impart,
the sufferings you could not bear,
the works of love you could not do
in your short life on earth,
let me impart,
and bear,
and do
through you.

But I am nothing, Lord.
Help Me!

(From Everyone’s Way of the Cross by Clarence Enzler)

Matthew 28:16-20
16Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

Jesus is Taken Down

2008-02-22T04:05:00.000-08:00

(Art by Peter Howson)

Christ Speaks
The sacrifice is done

Yes, my Mass is complete;
but not my mother’s
and not yours, my other self.

My mother still must cradle in her arms
the lifeless body of the son she bore.

You, too, must part from those you love,
and grief will come to you.

In your bereavements think of this:
A multitude of souls were saved
by Mary’s sharing in my Calvary.
Your grief can also be
the price of souls.

I Reply
I beg you, Lord,
help me accept the partings that must
come –
from friends who go away,
my children leaving home,
and most of all,
my dear ones
when you shall call them to yourself.

Then, give me grace to say:
“As it has pleased you, Lord,
to take them home,
I bow to your most holy will.
And if by just one word
I might restore their lives
against your will,
I would not speak.”

Grant them eternal joy.

(From Everyone’s Way of the Cross by Clarence Enzler)

Mark 15:42-47
42It was Preparation Day (that is, the day before the Sabbath). So as evening approached, 43Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus' body. 44Pilate was surprised to hear that he was already dead. Summoning the centurion, he asked him if Jesus had already died. 45When he learned from the centurion that it was so, he gave the body to Joseph. 46So Joseph bought some linen cloth, took down the body, wrapped it in the linen, and placed it in a tomb cut out of rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. 47Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Jesus saw where he was laid.

Jesus Dies

2008-02-20T04:00:00.000-08:00

(Art by Peter Howson)

Christ Speaks
The cross becomes a pulpit now –
“Forgive them, Father…
You will be with me in Paradise…
There is your mother…There…your
son…
I thirst…
It is complete.”

To speak I have to raise myself
by pressing on my wrists and feet
and every move engulfs me in new
waves of agony.

And then, when I have borne enough,
have emptied my humanity,
I let my mortal life depart.

I Reply
My Jesus,
God,
what can I say or do?

I offer you my death
with all its pains,
accepting now
the time and kind of death in store for me.
Not by a single instant
would I lengthen my life’s span.

I offer you my death
for my own sins
and for those of all humanity.

My God! My God! Forsake us not.
We know not what we do.

(From Everyone’s Way of the Cross by Clarence Enzler)

Psalm 39:4-7
4 "Show me, O LORD, my life's end

and the number of my days;

let me know how fleeting is my life.
5 You have made my days a mere handbreadth;

the span of my years is as nothing before you.

Each man's life is but a breath.

Selah
6 Man is a mere phantom as he goes to and fro:

He bustles about, but only in vain;

he heaps up wealth, not knowing who will get it.
7 "But now, Lord, what do I look for?

My hope is in you.

Jesus is Crucified

2008-02-19T16:42:00.001-08:00

(Art by Peter Howson)

Christ Speaks
Can you imagine what a crucifixion is?

My executioners stretch my arms;
they hold my hand and wrist against
the wood
and press the nail until it stabs my flesh.
Then, with one heavy hammer smash,
they drive it through –
and pain
bursts like a bomb of fire in my brain.

They size the other arm;
and agony again explodes.

Then raising up my knees
so that my feet are flat against the wood,
they hammer them fast, too.

I Reply
My God,
I look at you and think:
Is my soul worth this much?

What can I give you in return?

I here and now accept
for all my life
whatever sickness, torment, agony may
come.
To every cross I touch my lips.

O blessed cross that lets me be –
with you –
a co-redeemer of humanity.

(From Everyone’s Way of the Cross by Clarence Enzler)

Galatians 2:20
20I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Jesus is Stripped

2008-02-18T19:41:00.000-08:00

(Art by Peter Howson)

Christ Speaks
Behold, my other self,
the poorest king who ever lived.
Before my creatures I stand stripped.
The cross – my deathbed –
even this is not my own.

Yet who has ever been so rich?

Possessing nothing, I own all –
my Father’s love.

If you, too, would own everything,
be not solicitous
about your food, your clothes
your life.

I Reply
I offer you my all –
whatever I possess,
and more,
my self.

Detach me from the craving for
prestige,
position,
wealth.
Root out of me
all trace of envy of my neighbor
who has more than I.
Release me from the vice of pride,
my longing to exalt myself,
and lead me to the lowest place.

May I be poor in spirit, Lord,
so that I can be rich in you.

(From Everyone’s Way of the Cross by Clarence Enzler)

Galatians 5:22-26
22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. 25Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

The Third Fall

2008-02-17T17:41:00.000-08:00

(Art by Peter Howson)

Christ Speaks
Completely drained of strength
I lie, collapsed, upon the cobblestones.
My body cannot move.
No blows, no kicks,
can rouse it up.

And yet my will is mine.

And so is yours.

Know this, my other self,
your body may be broken,
but no force on earth
and none in hell
can take away your will.

Your will is yours.

I Reply
My Lord,
I see you take a moment’s rest
then rise and stagger on.
So I can do
Because my will is mine.

When all my strength is gone
and guilt and self-reproach
press me to earth and seem to hold me fast,
protect me from the sin of Judas –
save me from despair!

Lord, never let me feel that any sin of mine
is greater than your love.
No matter what my past has been
I can begin anew.

(From Everyone’s Way of the Cross by Clarence Enzler)

Psalm 103:8-16
8 The LORD is compassionate and gracious,

slow to anger, abounding in love.
9 He will not always accuse,

nor will he harbor his anger forever;
10 he does not treat us as our sins deserve

or repay us according to our iniquities.
11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,

so great is his love for those who fear him;
12 as far as the east is from the west,

so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
13 As a father has compassion on his children,

so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him;
14 for he knows how we are formed,

he remembers that we are dust.
15 As for man, his days are like grass,

he flourishes like a flower of the field;
16 the wind blows over it and it is gone,

and its place remembers it no more.

Jesus Consoles the Women

2008-02-16T16:46:00.001-08:00

(Art by Peter Howson)

Christ Speaks
How often had I longed to take
the children of Jerusalem
and gather them to me.
But they refused.

But now these women weep for me
and my heart mourns for them –
mourns for their sorrows that will come.

I comfort those who seek to solace me.

How gentle can you be, my other self?
How kind?

I Reply
My Jesus,
your compassion
in your passion
is beyond compare.

Lord, teach me,
help me learn.
When I would snap at those
who hurt me with their ridicule,
those who misunderstand,
or hinder me with some misguided
helpfulness,
those who intrude upon my privacy –
then help me curb my tongue.

May gentleness become my cloak.

Lord, make me kind like you.

(From Everyone’s Way of the Cross by Clarence Enzler)

Luke 13:34
34"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!

Jesus Falls Again

2008-02-15T15:11:00.000-08:00

(Art by Peter Howson)

Christ Speaks
This seventh step, my other self,
is one that tests your will.
From this fall learn to persevere
in doing good.

The time will come
when all your efforts seem to fail
and you will think,
“I can’t go on.”

Then turn to me,
my heavy-laden one,
and I will give you rest.

Trust me
and carry on.

I Reply
Give me your courage, Lord.
When failure presses heavily on me
and I am desolate,
stretch out your hand
to lift me up.

I know I must not cease,
but persevere
in doing good.

But help me, Lord,
Alone there’s nothing I can do.
With you, I can do anything you ask.
I will.

(From Everyone’s Way of the Cross by Clarence Enzler)

Psalm 37:23-28
23 If the LORD delights in a man's way,

he makes his steps firm;
24 though he stumble, he will not fall,

for the LORD upholds him with his hand.
25 I was young and now I am old,

yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken

or their children begging bread.
26 They are always generous and lend freely;

their children will be blessed.
27 Turn from evil and do good;

then you will dwell in the land forever.
28 For the LORD loves the just

and will not forsake his faithful ones.

They will be protected forever,

but the offspring of the wicked will be cut off;

Veronica Helps Jesus

2008-02-14T17:34:00.001-08:00

(Art by Peter Howson)

Christ Speaks
Can you be brave enough, my other self,
to wipe my bloody face?

Where is my face, you ask?

At home whenever eyes fill up with tears,
at work when tensions rise,
on playgrounds,
in the slums,
the courts, the hospitals, the jails –
wherever suffering exists –
my face is there.
And there I look for you
to wipe away my blood and tears.

I Reply
Lord, what you ask is hard.
It calls for courage and self-sacrifice,
and I am weak.
Please, give me strength.
don’t let me run away because of fear.

Lord, live in me
and act in me
and love in me.
and not in me alone – in all of us –
so that we may reveal
no more your bloody but your glorious
face on earth.

(From Everyone’s Way of the Cross by Clarence Enzler)

Matthew 25:31-46
31"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. 32All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'
37"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'
40"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'
41"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'
44"They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'
45"He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'
46"Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."

Simon Helps Jesus

2008-02-13T17:34:00.000-08:00

(Art by Peter Howson)

Christ Speaks
My strength is gone;
I can no longer bear the cross alone.
And so the legionnaires
make Simon give me aid.

This Simon is like you, my other self.

Give me your strength.

Each time you lift some burden from
another’s back,
you lift as with your very hand
the cross’ awful weight
that crushes me.

I Reply
Lord, make me realize
that every time I wipe a dish,
pick up an object off the floor,
assist a child in some small task,
or give another preference
in traffic or the store;
each time I feed the hungry,
clothe the naked,
teach the ignorant,
or lend my hand in any way –
it matters not to whom –
my name is Simon.
And the kindness I extend to them
I really give to you.

(From Everyone’s Way of the Cross by Clarence Enzler)

Matthew 27:27-32
27Then the governor's soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. 28They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, 29and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand and knelt in front of him and mocked him. "Hail, king of the Jews!" they said. 30They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again. 31After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him.

32As they were going out, they met a man from Cyrene, named Simon, and they forced him to carry the cross.

Jesus Meets His Mother

2008-02-12T17:27:00.000-08:00

(Art by Peter Howson)

Christ Speaks
My mother sees me whipped.
She sees me kicked and driven like a beast.
She counts my every wound.
But though her soul cries out in agony,
no protest or complaint
escapes her lips
or even enters her thoughts.

She shares my martyrdom –
and I share hers.
We hide no pain,
no sorrow,
from each other’s eyes.
This is my Father’s will.

I Reply
My Jesus, Lord,
I know what you are telling me.
To watch the pain of those we love
is harder than to bear our own.

To carry my cross after you,
I, too, must stand and watch
the sufferings of my dear ones –
the heartaches, sicknesses and grief
of those I love.

And I must let them watch mine, too.

I do believe –
for those who love you
all things work together unto good.

(From Everyone’s Way of the Cross by Clarence Enzler)

Luke 2:25-35
25Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. 26It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord's Christ. 27Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, 28Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying: 29"Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace. 30For my eyes have seen your salvation, 31which you have prepared in the sight of all people, 32a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel."

33The child's father and mother marveled at what was said about him. 34Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: "This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, 35so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too."

Jesus Falls

2008-02-11T17:47:00.000-08:00

(Art by Peter Howson)

Jesus Falls

Christ Speaks
The God who made the universe,
and holds it in existence
by his will alone,
becomes a man, too weak to bear
a piece of timber’s weight.

How human in his weakness is the Son
of God

My Father willed it thus.
I could not be your model otherwise.

If you would be my other self,
you also must accept without complaint
your human frailities.

I reply
Lord Jesus, how can I refuse?

I willingly accept my weaknesses,
my irritations and my moods,
my headaches and fatigue,
all my defects of body, mind and soul.

Because they are your will for me,
these “handicaps” of my humanity,
I gladly suffer them.

Make me content with all my discontents,
but give me strength to struggle after you.

(from Everyone’s Way of the Cross by Clarence Enzler)

2 Corinthians 12:7-10
7To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 10That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Jesus Takes His Cross

2008-02-10T16:41:00.000-08:00

Art by Peter Howson

Jesus Takes His Cross

Christ Speaks
This cross,
this chunk of tree,
is what my Father chose for me.

The crosses you must bear
are largely products of your daily life.
And yet my Father chose them, too,
for you.

Receive them from his hands.

Take heart, my other self,
I will not let your burdens grow
one ounce too heavy for your strength.

I reply
My Jesus, Lord,
I take my daily cross.
I welcome the monotony
that often marks my day,
discomforts of all kinds,
the summer’s heat, the winter’s cold,
my disappointments, tensions, setbacks,
cares.

Remind me often that
in carrying my cross,
I carry yours with you.
And though I bear a sliver only
of your cross,
you carry all of mine, except a sliver,
in return.

(From Everyone’s Way of the Cross by Clarence Enzler)

1 Peter 5:6-11
6Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. 7Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
8Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 9Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.

10And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. 11To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen.

Jesus is Condemned to Die

2008-02-09T14:43:00.000-08:00

(Art by Peter Howson)

Jesus is Condemned
Christ Speaks

In Pilate’s hands, my other self,
I see my Father’s will.
though Pilate is unjust,
he is the lawful governor
and he has power over me.

And so the Son of God obeys.

If I can bow to Pilate’s rule
because this is my Father’s will,
can you refuse obedience
to those whom I place over you?

I Reply

My Jesus, Lord,
obedience cost you your life.
For me
it costs an act of will –
no more –
and yet how hard it is for me to bend.

Remove the blinders from my eyes
that I may see that it is you whom I obey
in all who govern me.

Lord, it is you.

(From Everyone’s Way of the Cross by Clarence Enzler)

Hebrews 13:17
17Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.

Everyone's Way of the Cross

2008-02-08T17:11:00.001-08:00

(Art by Peter Howson)

Today I wanted to begin a series of devotions from a little book that is very special to me. Several years ago our church held a women’s retreat at Rockfish and we had a friend of Sandra’s come as the speaker. Her name was Margaret Hitt and it was a wonderful time of renewal and rest for me. In one of her sessions, Margaret read a short little booklet to us called Everyone’s Way of the Cross. It made such an impact on me that I searched it out on the internet and bought several copies of it. The author is Clarence Enzler and it is a contemporary telling of the 14 Stations of the Cross. So, hopefully, I’ve given enough credit and sharing this with you won’t be totally illegal or unethical from a publishing point of view!

Introduction
(Christ Speaks)

These fourteen steps
that you are new about to walk
you do not take alone.

I walk with you.

Though year are you,
and I am I,
yet we are truly one –
one Christ.

And there fore
my way of the cross
two thousand years ago
and your “way” now
are also one.

But note this difference.
my life was incomplete until I crowned it
by my death.
Your fourteen steps
will only be complete
when you have crowed them
by your life.

Matthew 16:21-28
21From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.
22Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. "Never, Lord!" he said. "This shall never happen to you!"
23Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men."
24Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. 26What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? 27For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done. 28I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."

Ash Wednesday

2008-02-06T17:28:00.000-08:00

Readings from the Book of Common Prayer for Ash Wednesday:

Joel 2:1-2, 12-17
1 Blow the trumpet in Zion;

sound the alarm on my holy hill.

Let all who live in the land tremble,

for the day of the LORD is coming.

It is close at hand-
2 a day of darkness and gloom,

a day of clouds and blackness.

Like dawn spreading across the mountains

a large and mighty army comes,

such as never was of old

nor ever will be in ages to come.
12 "Even now," declares the LORD,

"return to me with all your heart,

with fasting and weeping and mourning."
13 Rend your heart

and not your garments.

Return to the LORD your God,

for he is gracious and compassionate,

slow to anger and abounding in love,

and he relents from sending calamity.
14 Who knows? He may turn and have pity

and leave behind a blessing—

grain offerings and drink offerings

for the LORD your God.
15 Blow the trumpet in Zion,

declare a holy fast,

call a sacred assembly.
16 Gather the people,

consecrate the assembly;

bring together the elders,

gather the children,

those nursing at the breast.

Let the bridegroom leave his room

and the bride her chamber.
17 Let the priests, who minister before the LORD,

weep between the temple porch and the altar.

Let them say, "Spare your people, O LORD.

Do not make your inheritance an object of scorn,

a byword among the nations.

Why should they say among the peoples,

'Where is their God?' "

2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10
We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

1As God's fellow workers we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain. 2For he says, "In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you." I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation.

3We put no stumbling block in anyone's path, so that our ministry will not be discredited. 4Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; 5in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; 6in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; 7in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; 8through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; 9known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; 10sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
1"Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

2"So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 3But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

5"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 6But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

16"When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 17But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

19"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Christ Behind and Before Me

2008-02-05T16:45:00.000-08:00

“I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11) God can take events of the past and weave them so skillfully into a new plan for us that not only do we find there is a future for us after all, but it is as if there have been no wasted years.

Christ Behind Me
There He walks in your past. He walks in all the dark rooms you pretend are closed, that He may bring light. Invite Him into your past. Experience His forgiveness, His acceptance of you. Offer especially all that you are ashamed of…all that you wish to forget…all that still pains and hurts you…all the hurt you have caused others. Walk there in the places you are afraid of, knowing that He walks with you and will lead you on!

Christ Before Me
He forever goes before us to prepare a place for us. He is on the road we tread. Wherever life is leading us, He has gone before. Perhaps we have no clue about what lies ahead; we know who is ahead of us, so the future is not quite unknown.(From David Adam in The Edge of Glory)

Shrove Tuesday

2008-02-04T18:16:00.001-08:00

Tomorrow is Shrove Tuesday or for us Louisianans, Mardi Gras! Which means Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. Here’s a meditation that may be useful for reflection during this season:

The other morning some of us were together in a church where the rector was saying Morning Prayer, and leading us in guided silent prayer. He said, “Let us pray for those whom we love.” And that was easy. Then he said, “Let us pray for those whom we do not love.” And there rose up before my mind three men for whom I had to pray. They were men who had opposed my work. In this they may have been wrong. But my wrong was in resentment and a feeling of letting myself be cut off from them, and even from praying for them, because of it. Years ago I read a quotation from Mary Lyon that recurs to me again and again: “Nine-tenths of our suffering is caused by others not thinking so much of us as we think they ought.” If you want to know where pride nestles and festers in most of us, that is right where it is; and it is not the opposition of others, but our own pride, which causes us the deepest hurt. I never read a word that penetrated more deeply into the sin of pride from which all of us suffer, nor one which opens up more surgically our places of unforgiveness. – Samuel Moor Shoemaker in And Thy Neighbor

Sins: A Prayer from The Valley of Vision

2008-02-02T15:34:00.000-08:00

Merciful Lord,
Pardon all my sins of this day, week, year,
All the sins of my life,
Sins of early, middle, and advanced years,
Of omission and commission,
Of morose, peevish and angry tempers,
Of lip, life and walk,
Of hard=heartedness, unbelief, presumption, pride,
Of unfaithfulness to the souls of men,
Of want of bold decision in the cause of Christ,
Of deficiency in outspoken zeal for his glory,
Of bringing dishonor upon thy great name,
Of deception, injustice, untruthfulness
In my dealings with others,
Of impurity in thought, word and deed,
Of covetousness, which is idolatry,
Of substance unduly hoarded, improvidently squandered,
Not consecrated to the glory of thee, the great giver’

Sins in private and in the family,
In study and recreation, in the busy haunts of men,
In the study of thy Word and in the neglect of it,
In prayer irreverently offered and coldly withheld,
In time misspent,
In yielding to Satan’s wiles,
In opening my heart to his temptations,
In being unwatchful when I know him nigh,
In quenching the Holy Spirit;

Sins against light and knowledge,
Against conscience and the restraints of they Spirit,
Against the law of eternal love.

Pardon all my sins, know and unknown, felt and unfelt,
Confessed and not confessed, remembered or forgotten.

Good Lord, hear; and hearing, forgive.
Amen

Desert Fathers

2008-01-30T17:42:00.000-08:00

Somebody asked Antony, “What shall I do in order to please God?” He replied, “Do what I tell you, which is this: wherever you go, keep God in mind; whatever you do, follow the example of Scripture; wherever you are, stay there and do not move away in a hurry.” - The Desert Fathers

A brother asked a hermit, “Tell me something good that I may do it and live by it.” The hermit said, “God alone knows what is good. But I have heard that one of the hermits asked the great Nesteros, who was a friend of Antony, “What good work shall I do?” and he replied, “Surely all works please God equally? Scripture says, Abraham was hospitable and God was with him; Elijah loved quiet and God was with him; David was humble and God was with him. So whatever you find you are drawn to in following God’s will, do it and let your heart be at peace.” – The Desert Fathers

One of the fathers said: Just as it is impossible to see your face in troubled water, so also the soul, unless it is clear of alien thoughts, is not able to pray to God in contemplation. – Desert Wisdom

It was said about Abba Agathon that for three years he carried a pebble around in his mouth until he learned to be silent. – Desert Wisdom

Patience

2008-01-29T17:38:00.000-08:00

Galatians 5:22-26
22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. 25Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

Do you ever feel like your patience is just about at its last teensy drop and you are fighting to keep it all under control? That’s the way I’ve felt today for some reason. It’s probably hormonal, but I imagine God can use even hormones to make me take a deeper look at my attitudes. Ah…….patience…..one of the glorious fruits of the Spirit.

Definition: Patience is the ability to endure waiting, delay, or provocation without becoming annoyed or upset, or to persevere calmly when faced with difficulties.

I don’t really have a problem with waiting or delays, but provocation, now that’s another story. Do you think your husband ever says or does that one thing that he absolutely, one hundred percent, without-a-shadow-of-a-doubt knows will drive you buggers? On purpose? Maybe I’m the only one out there that feels this way, but I swear, I think Matt has a sixth sense when it comes to knowing exactly what will get under my skin. No, provocation, or even just perceived provocation, I’m not handling very well.

Then there’s the bit about “persevere calmly when faced with difficulties.” I thought I was going to scream when I couldn’t get the printer at Trinity to work today…after trying for about 45 minutes to print out a report that was due to my boss….before I left for the day…just in time to pick up the kids from school. Grrrr…Finally it worked! And then, as I was walking over to my boss’s office to drop off the report (with my 55 lb. computer bag in tow so I could dash straight out to my truck to make it just in time to get the kids) I noticed a major mistake. (OK, it wasn’t that major, but I hated to give him something that wasn’t perfect. Could PRIDE possibly also be a problem today?) There went half of that already very teensy last drop of patience.

So, according to the definition above, I have been very much without patience today. Most of those around me probably wouldn’t even notice…OK, Matt does, but he knows me way too well. But, I know this frustration and anxiousness I have bubbling under the surface whether anyone else sees it or not – whether I’m good enough at putting on a pleasant face to the world or not – whether I finally lose it or not. And so does God – He knows the blackness of my heart, my thoughts, my motives, my feelings. Yet, I am still His beloved. Yet, He is still willing to move Heaven and Earth to ransom my heart. Yes, He wants me to be His bride, His lover, His friend. That’s very, very hard to understand.

Lord, help me remember that patience is a gift from you…It is a fruit of Your Spirit in my life. Something You give, not something I must force myself to do or feel. Forgive me for my frustrations, my pettiness, my meanness, my thoughts. Give me more and more of You that I might become more and more like Your Son, Jesus Christ, the Lamb who was slain, for this particular sin of mine and all the uncountable others. Amen.

Christ the Companion

2008-01-28T17:34:00.000-08:00

WHEN I've thrown my books aside, being petulant and weary,

And have turned down the gas, and the firelight has sufficed,

When my brain's too stiff for prayer, and too indolent for theory,

Will You come and play with me, big Brother Christ?

Will You slip behind the book-case? Will you stir the window-curtain,

Peeping from the shadow with Your eyes like flame?

Set me staring at the alcove where the flicker's so uncertain,

Then suddenly, at my elbow, leap up, catch me, call my name?

Or take the great arm-chair, help me set the chestnuts roasting,

And tell me quiet stories, while the brown skins pop,

Of wayfarers and merchantmen and tramp of Roman hosting,

And how Joseph dwelt with Mary in the carpenter's shop?

When I drift away in dozing, will You softly light the candles

And touch the piano with Your kind, strong fingers,

Set stern fugues of Bach and stately themes of Handel's

Stalking through the corners where the last disquiet lingers?

And when we say good-night, and You kiss me on the landing,

Will You promise faithfully and make a solemn tryst:

You'll be just at hand if wanted, close by here where we are standing,

And be down in time for breakfast, big Brother Christ?

BY: Dorothy Sayers

O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus

2008-01-27T18:43:00.001-08:00

Today at church we sang O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus. It was so moving, I wanted to go back and read the lyrics again…so here they are for you, too!

O the deep, deep love of Jesus, vast, unmeasured, boundless, free!

Rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me!

Underneath me, all around me, is the current of Thy love

Leading onward, leading homeward to Thy glorious rest above!

O the deep, deep love of Jesus, spread His praise from shore to shore!

How He loveth, ever loveth, changeth never, nevermore!

How He watches o’er His loved ones, died to call them all His own;

How for them He intercedeth, watcheth o’er them from the throne!
O the deep, deep love of Jesus, love of every love the best!

’Tis an ocean full of blessing, ’tis a haven giving rest!

O the deep, deep love of Jesus, ’tis a heaven of heavens to me;

And it lifts me up to glory, for it lifts me up to Thee!

How Big is Your God?

2008-01-26T16:24:00.000-08:00

FASCINATING.. EDUCATIONAL...

THIS is really fascinating - it's rather dazzling to see it presented this way.

I CERTAINLY THOUGHT THIS WAS ENLIGHTENING. BEYOND OUR SUN, IT'S A BIG UNIVERSE.

ANTARES IS THE 15TH BRIGHTEST STAR IN THE SKY . IT IS MORE THAN 1000 LIGHT YEARS AWAY. NOW HOW BIG ARE YOU?

NOW TRY TO WRAP YOUR MIND AROUND THIS......... THIS IS A HUBBLE TELESCOPE ULTRA DEEP FIELD INFRARED VIEW OF COUNTLESS'ENTIRE' GALAXIES BILLIONS OF LIGHT-YEARS AWAY.

BELOW IS A CLOSE UP OF ONE OF THE DARKEST REGIONS OF THE PHOTO ABOVE.

HUMBLING, ISN'T IT?

And yet, Someone knows how many hairs are on your head, and not even a single sparrow dies apart from His will (Mt. 10:29-31)!

NOW HOW BIG ARE YOU?

AND HOW BIG ARE THE THINGS THAT UPSET YOU TODAY?

AND HOW BIG IS YOUR GOD? KEEP LIFE IN PERSPECTIVE. AND DON'T SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF!

IT'S ALL UNDER CONTROL (Job 38)

STILL SOME SAY THERE IS NOT A GOD!

Rest

2008-01-25T17:25:00.000-08:00

I’m praying that we each will have a restful weekend:

A Prayer for Sleepless Nights

The sky is bright with uncountable stars.
I know they are uncountable:
I have tried this impossible task
these sleepless nights.

Where are You, Lord,
as the fog of fatigue
numbs me of all
but the desperate desire to sleep?

Comfort me, Lord, with Your presence
as the ever-watchful mother
soothes the fretful, feverish child.

Grant me the gift of sleep;
and be the guardian of my dreams,
that I may know You through them also.

Or if I must watch with You through
the long, hard night,
share with me the burden of Your heart
that my sleepless hours
be spent in purposeful prayer.

And if You bless me once more with the
gift of the morning,
may I rise,
grateful to greet You,
ready to walk with You
into the tasks of the day.

- Anne Wadey

Obedience & Subjection

2008-01-23T18:10:00.000-08:00

It is a very great thing to obey, to live under a superior and not to be one’s own master, for it is much safer to be subject than it is to command. Many live in obedience more from necessity than from love. Such become discontented and dejected on the slightest pretext; they will never gain peace of mind unless they subject themselves wholeheartedly for the love of God.

Go where you may, you will find no rest except in humble obedience to the rule of authority. Dreams of happiness expected from change and different places have deceived many.

Everyone, it is true, wishes to do as he pleases and is attracted to those who agree with him. But if God be among us, we must at times give up our opinions for the blessings of peace.

Furthermore, who is so wise that he can have full knowledge of everything? Do not trust too much in your own opinions, but be willing to listen to those of others. If, though your own be good, you accept another’s opinion for love of God, you will gain much more merit; for I have often heard that it is safer to listen to advice and take it than to give it. It may happen, too, that while one’s own opinion may be good, refusal to agree with others when reason and occasion demand it, is a sign of pride and obstinacy. – Thomas A Kempis Imitation of Christ

Epiphany

2008-01-22T16:33:00.000-08:00

One of my New Year’s resolutions was to try to more purposefully follow the liturgical year, especially in Scripture reading. January 6th was the day of Epiphany. (I know, Windy, as our token Episcopalian, you are much more on top of these things than we Presbyterians! :) ) In the early church, the day of Epiphany celebrated the birth of Christ. Then, after the birth of Christ was moved to December 25th to replace the pagan feast of the birth of the sun, Epiphany became the celebration of the manifestation of Jesus as the Son of God, the Savior of the Word. In the Western church, this manifestation was celebrated by three great events: the visit of the Magi, the baptism of Jesus, and the marriage feast of Cana.

The typical Scripture readings for Epiphany are Isaiah 60:1-6, 9, Psalm 72, Ephesians 3:1-12, and Matthew 2:1-12. You can see the movement of the manifestation of Christ in these Scriptures: In Isaiah and the psalm we read the proclamation of the coming Epiphany. In Matthew, the story of the Magi, shows us the coming of the promise, that the glory of God has become manifest to all the peoples of the world. And then in the New Testament reading of Ephesians, we see the work of the church is to manifest Christ to the whole world. The glory of God has come to the earth and will spread throughout the universe! This is the shout of Epiphany.

What does Epiphany mean to me personally? It means that I am to commit my life to be a vessel through which the Epiphany can be extended from the little manger in Bethlehem to my world today. I am part of His body, the church. And the church has a mission – to manifest Christ’s light and love to all the world.

Isaiah 6:1-6, 9
1 "Arise, shine, for your light has come,

and the glory of the LORD rises upon you.
2 See, darkness covers the earth

and thick darkness is over the peoples,

but the LORD rises upon you

and his glory appears over you.
3 Nations will come to your light,

and kings to the brightness of your dawn.
4 "Lift up your eyes and look about you:

All assemble and come to you;

your sons come from afar,

and your daughters are carried on the arm.
5 Then you will look and be radiant,

your heart will throb and swell with joy;

the wealth on the seas will be brought to you,

to you the riches of the nations will come.
6 Herds of camels will cover your land,

young camels of Midian and Ephah.

And all from Sheba will come,

bearing gold and incense

and proclaiming the praise of the LORD.
9 Surely the islands look to me;

in the lead are the ships of Tarshish,

bringing your sons from afar,

with their silver and gold,

to the honor of the LORD your God,

the Holy One of Israel,

for he has endowed you with splendor.

Ephesians 3:1-12
1For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles—
2Surely you have heard about the administration of God's grace that was given to me for you, 3that is, the mystery made known to me by revelation, as I have already written briefly. 4In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, 5which was not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God's holy apostles and prophets. 6This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.
7I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God's grace given me through the working of his power. 8Although I am less than the least of all God's people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, 9and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things. 10His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, 11according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. 12In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.

Trees

2008-01-21T17:36:00.001-08:00

I’m reading Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles. I came across this passage today about trees…

His name was Benjamin Driscoll, and he was thirty-one years old. And the thing that he wanted was Mars grown green and tall with trees and foliage, producing air, more air, growing larger with each season; trees to cool the towns in the boiling summer, trees to hold back the winter winds. There were so many things a tree could do: add color, provide shade, drop fruit, or become a children’s playground, a whole sky universe to climb and hang from; an architecture of food and pleasure, that was a tree. But most of all the trees would distill an icy air for the lungs, and a gentle rustling for the ear when you lay nights in your snowy bed and were gentled to sleep by the sound.

I read that and thought how wonderful God’s Creation is…Just taking a tiny piece of it, like trees, you can see how amazing our God is. He gave us trees that in turn give us so much: food to eat, air to breath, beauty to enjoy, limbs to climb, even rustling leaves to gentle us to sleep. Isaiah calls for the trees to burst forth with joyous singing at the consideration of Israel’s salvation and the psalmist tells us that the trees will sing for joy when the LORD comes to judge the earth. How glorious will that be!

Genesis 2:8-9
Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. And the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Psalms 96:11-13
11 Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad;
let the sea resound, and all that is in it;
12 let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them.
Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy;
13 they will sing before the LORD, for he comes,
he comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world in righteousness
and the peoples in his truth.

Isaiah 44:22-23
22 I have swept away your offenses like a cloud,
your sins like the morning mist.
Return to me,
for I have redeemed you."
23 Sing for joy, O heavens, for the LORD has done this;
shout aloud, O earth beneath.
Burst into song, you mountains,
you forests and all your trees,
for the LORD has redeemed Jacob,
he displays his glory in Israel.

Blood Bought and Beautified by Grace

2008-01-15T18:08:00.000-08:00

Here’s a poem I found by John Piper about the prophet Hosea and his harlot wife Gomer. I thought it was lovely. It’s long, but worth the read. May we thank God for loving us and making us His bride even as we, like Gomer, have adulterous hearts.

Hosea and Gomer
By John Piper

The old man and his wife sat by

The winter fire and looked out high

Above the plains of Ephraim,

And saw around the last regime

Of Israel the shadows snake

Their way from east to west and take

Possession of Samaria.

"How long until Assyria,

'They thought, "would break

Hoshea's rod,

And violate the wife of God?"
But strange as it may seem, the doom

They saw across the land left room

For hope. And when they looked into

Each other's eyes, as they would do

At night, they knew, as none could know

But they, that God would bend his bow

Against the charms of foreign men,

And take his faithless wife again.

They knew it could and would be done,

As surely as the rising sun

Drives darkness back unerringly,

And drowns it in the western sea.

They knew, because they had rehearsed

The tragedy and played it first

Themselves with passion and deceit.
"It's true that life is far more sweet,"

Hosea thought, "when it is lost,

Then bought again at dreadful cost;

And love grows strong when it must wait,

And deep when it is almost hate."
Such things as these he often said

To Gomer as they watched the red

And crimson echoes of the sky

Descend Mount Tabor's cliffs and die

In darkness far below. And she

Would say to him, "Your love for me

Was like a mountain waterfall,

And I the jagged stone. Of all

The knives and hammers once applied

None made me smooth or clean. They tried,

But harlotry was in my blood,

Until your love became a flood

Cascading over my crude life

And kept me as your only wife."
They knew as none but they could know

What it would mean that long ago

The Lord allowed his love to swell,

And married faithless Israel.
The passing of the years now found

The children grown and gathered 'round

This night: Jezreel and Loammi,

Hosea's sons, and at his knee

Loruhamah. The room was sweet

With memories, and each replete

With pleasure and with ample pain.

Among the memories one main

Experience above the rest

Embraced them all. It was the best;

Indeed it was the mountain spring

Of every happy stream from which

The family ever drank, and rich

With hope. It was Hosea's love.

The children stood in wonder of

The way he loved, and Gomer too.

But this had not always been true.
Hosea used to say, "It's hard

To be a seer, and prophet bard.

The price is high when he must sing

A song of ruin over everything

In lyrics written with his life

And lose his children and his wife."
And so it was, Hosea heard

The Lord. It was the strangest word

A holy prophet ever got:

And every pointed precept shot

Like arrows at Hosea's life:"

Go take a harlot for your wife,

"Thus says the Lord, "And feel with me

The grief and pain of harlotry.

Her father's name is Diblaim;

He makes fertility with cream

And raisin cakes. He will not see

Her go without a price, for she

Has brought him profits from her trade.

Now go, and let her price be paid;

And bring her back and let her bear

Your son. Call him Jezreel. For there

Is coming soon a day when I

Will strike and break the bloody thigh

Of Jehu's brutal house, and seal

With blood the valley of Jezreel.
And after that, though she's defiled.

Go in, and get another child,

And make your tender face like rock.

Call her Loruahmah and lock

Your heart against all sympathy:

`Not pitied' is her name. No plea

From faithless Israel will wake

My sympathy till I forsake

My daughter in the wilderness.
Now multiply once more distress:

Hosea, go beget a son,

For there is yet one child to shun,

And call him Loammi, in shame,

For `Not My People' is his name."
Hosea used to walk along

The Jordan rim and sing the song

His father Beeri used to sing.

Sometimes the tune and truth would bring

Him peace, and he would pause and look

At all the turns the Jordan took,

To make its way down to the sea,

And he would chant from memory:
Think not, my son, that God's great river

Of love flows simply to the sea,

He aims not straight, but to deliver

The wayward soul like you and me.

Follow the current where it goes,

With love and grace it ever flows.
The years went by, the children grew,

The river bent and Gomer knew

A dozen men. And finally

She left and traveled to the sea,

And sold herself to foreign priests

Who made the children serve at feasts

Until they had no shame. And then

The God of grace came down again,

And said, "Hosea, go, embrace

Your wife beside the sea. And place

Your hand with blessing on the head

Of Loammi, and raise the dead

Loruhamah to life in me,

And tell Jezreel that I will be

For him a seed of hope to sow

In righteousness. Hosea, go,

The gracious river bends once more."
And so the prophet loved these four

Again, and sought them by the sea,

And bought them with the equity

Of everything he owned.That was

The memory tonight, because

Hosea loved beyond the way

Of mortal man. What man would say,

"Love grows more strong when it must wait,

And deeper when it's almost hate."
Jezreel spoke softly for the rest,

"Father, once more let us be blessed.

What were the words from long ago

That gave you strength to love us so?

Would you please bless us with your rhyme,

And sing it for us one more time?"
"Think not, my son, that God's great river

Of love flows simply to the sea,

He aims not straight, but to deliver

The wayward soul like you and me.

Follow the current where it goes.

With love and grace it ever flows."
"And children," Gomer said with tears,

"Mark this, the miracle of years."

She looked Hosea in the face

And said, "Hosea, man of grace,

Dark harlotry was in my blood,

Until your love became a flood

Cascading over my crude life

And kept me as your only wife.

I love the very ground you trod,

And most of all I love your God."
This is the lamp of candle four:

A bride made ready at the door.

A shabby slave waits her embrace,

Blood-bought and beautified by grace.

Forgiving Other Christians

2008-01-14T18:11:00.000-08:00

Check out Lynn’s blog at http://lynnsmusings.blogspot.com/ . She has a great post from Sunday called The Thorns of Friendship.

In that same vein, here’s a passage from John Piper’s book Future Grace that I go back and read from time to time:

The Basis of Forgiving Other Christians

But now another crucial question emerges. If God’s promise of judgment is the basis for not holding grudges against unrepentant enemies, what is the basis of our not holding grudges against Christian brothers and sisters who do repent? Our moral indignation at a terrible offense does not evaporate just because the offender is a Christian. In fact we may feel even more betrayed. And a simple, “I’m sorry,” will often seem utterly disproportionate to the painfulness and ugliness of the offense.

But in this case we are dealing with fellow Christians and the promise of God’s wrath does not apply because there is “no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1) “God has not destined [Christians] for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:9). So now where do we look, to escape from the “judicial predicament”? Where shall we turn to assure ourselves that justice will be done – that Christianity is not a mockery of the seriousness of sin?

The answer is that we look to the cross of Christ. All the wrongs that have been done against us by believers were avenged in the death of Jesus. This is implied in the simple but staggering fact that all the sins of God’s people were laid on Jesus (Isaiah 53:6, 1 Corinthians 15:3, Galatians 1:4, 1 John 2:2, 4:10, 1 Peter 2:24, 3:18). The suffering of Christ was the recompense of God on every hurt I have ever received from a fellow Christian (Romans 4:25, 8:3, 2 Corinthians 5:21, Galatians 3:13). Therefore, Christianity does not make light of sin. It does not add insult to our injury. On the contrary it takes the sins against us so seriously that, to make them right, God gave his own Son to suffer more than we could ever make anyone suffer for what they have done to us.

Therefore, when God says, “Vengeance is mine,” the meaning is more than we may have thought. God undertakes vengeance against sin not only by means of hell, but also by means of the cross. All sin will be avenged – severely and thoroughly and justly. Either in hell, or at the cross. The sins of the unrepentant will be avenged in hell; the sins of the repentant were avenged on the cross.

Goodwill Find

2008-01-13T17:26:00.000-08:00

I went to Goodwill a week or so ago and perused their book selection. I like to do this every so often because you can find some really good books cheap. Paperbacks are 50 cents and hardbacks are only $1. Here’s my find:

Death Be Not Proud: A Memoir by John Gunther
Songs in Ordinary Time by Mary McGarry Morris
Reflections on the Word by Ken Gire
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher by Lewis Thomas

The Ken Gire book was my best find. I’m reading his book Windows of the Soul right now. I purchased it from Amazon this summer because John Elderidge references this book in The Sacred Romance and says that’s where he got his idea for the “windows” he puts in the workbook. I’ve enjoyed Gire’s writing immensely so far, so I was very excited to find another of his books at Goodwill.

In Reflections on the Word, Gire starts by outlining how this devotional will be set up:

“In my book, The Reflective Life, the primer in the series, I introduce three habits of the heart that nurture a reflective life: reading the moment, reflecting on the moment, and responding to the moment. In this devotional, they are specifically applied to what we see in Scriptures:

Reading the Word is using our eyes to see what’s on the surface.

Reflecting on the Word is engaging our mind to see what’s beneath the surface.

Responding to the Word is giving what we have seen a place to live in our heart, allowing it to grow there, upward to God and outward to other people.”

So – here’s the first devotional in his book for you tonight:

Reading the Word:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was formless and void, and the darkness was over the surface of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. Then God said, “Let there by light”; and there was light. (Genesis 1:1-3)

Reflecting on the Word:
Eons ago, the Spirit of God hovered over the nest of the new earth, working with the Word of God to bring form and fullness to the creation. The mechanics of the miracle remain a mystery. “Just as you do not know the path of the wind and how bones are formed in the womb of a pregnant woman,” said Solomon, “So you do not know the activity of God who makes all things.”

Going from the miracle of physical life to the miracle of spiritual life, the mystery remains. “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from or where it is going,” Jesus said. “So is everyone born of the Spirit.”

The Spirit of God that moved over the waters of the young earth, that moved over the womb of a young virgin, still moves today. Just as miraculously. And just as mysteriously.

Our response, it seems to me, should be awe, not analysis; worship, not reasoning; joy, not jury duty on the way God has chosen to work in the world He has created. (Ken Gire)

Responding to the Word
Creator Spirit, who broodest everlastingly over the lands and waters of the earth, enduing them with forms and colours which no human skill can copy, give me to-day, I beseech Thee, the mind and heart to rejoice in Thy creation.

Forbid that I should walk through Thy beautiful world with unseeing eyes:

Forbid that the lure of the market-place should ever entirely steal my heart away from the love of the open acres and the green trees:

Forbid that under the low roof of workshop or office or study I should ever forget Thy great overarching sky:

Forbid that when all Thy creatures are greeting the morning with songs and shouts of joy, I alone should wear a dull and sullen face:

Let the energy and vigour which in Thy wisdom Thou has infused into every living thing stir today within my being, that I may not be amoung Thy creatures as a sluggard and a drone:

And above all give me grace to use these beauties of earth without me and this eager stirring of life within me as a means whereby my soul may rise from creature to Creator, and from nature to nature’s God.

John Baillie (A Diary of Private Prayer)

Remember Longest

2008-01-12T15:45:00.000-08:00

I’ve started reading A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean. When I’m reading, I like to underline or highlight meaningful passages to go back and look at later. But I also like to note words or interesting phrases different authors use. I marked this in A River Runs Through It:

“Since one of the earliest things brothers try to find out is how they differ from each other, one of the things I remember longest about Paul is this business about his liking to bet.”

The phrase “I remember longest” is what caught me. I’ve heard “I remember well” or “I remember most” but not “I remember longest.” I suppose it’s not that odd of a phrase, but it got me thinking. Memory is such a fleeting thing…Like sitting here now, I know next week when I read this, I won’t really remember the details surrounding me right now: Sadie going nuts barking while I try write because there are kids outside playing, Mary working at the dining room table on beaded bracelets for her friends asking me now and then for help or my opinion, Sean working quietly on the computer on the other side of the room, Matt upstairs napping. I will have lost the memory of those little details (except that now that I’ve written about them, I will remember when I read this…hence the beauty of writing, I think.) And I am forgetting even more important things – like what my first baby looked like when he was born. 21 years later, it’s hard for me to get a good picture in my head of that little wrinkled face anymore. Time flows along and carries so much of our lives with it.

God keeps it all, though. He sees my wrinkled little face when I was born and He sees my wrinkled old face when I lay dying and He sees everything in between. All together, all at once. Time is a river He sees in total, from above. He’s not standing in the middle of the river like we are, watching everything go by, and losing sight of what was just surrounding us. He’s outside of it, bigger. He made it. Mind boggling, isn’t it? To be outside of time? But, as extraordinary as it is, I somehow get comfort in knowing that God, when He looks at me, sees all of me…not just my physical being, but my chronological being, too. I’m not sure why, but it helps to know He remembers me as I used to be and He sees what I will be. It helps to know there is Someone who remembers me the longest.

Genesis 1:14
And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years,

2 Peter 3:8
But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.

A Little Child

2008-01-11T18:29:00.000-08:00

“In the little world in which children have their existence, whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt as injustice. It may be only small injustice that the child can be exposed to; but the child is small, and its world is small, and its rocking-horse stands as many hands high, according to scale, as a big-boned Irish hunter.” – Pip in Great Expectations

I really enjoyed Great Expectations. Much more than I thought I would when our book club chose it to read last month. This was one of many passages I marked in the book to mull over at a later date. It is so true that children have such a keen sense of fairness, isn’t it? God gives us this innate understanding of what is right and wrong along with recognition of when we, or someone else, is treated unfairly. This inborn knowledge, I think, is part of the image of God we are given…but it seems to fade with time. We begin questioning if something is really wrong. The lines seem become blurry. Why do we lose that strong understanding of justice? Are we becoming more pragmatic and less idealistic as we grow older?

To be like children again…honest, trusting, perceptive…I challenge you tonight to think of the little girl you once were. What is it about her should you try to reclaim? How should you be more like a little child?

Isaiah 5:20
Woe to those who call evil good

and good evil,
who put darkness for light
and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter.

Matthew 19:13-14
Then little children were brought to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked those who brought them. Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."

Walking on Eggshells

2008-01-10T13:40:00.000-08:00

Have you ever worked with someone who is just plain mean? I’ve been dealing with a difficult work relationship for some months. It’s with our IT guy. There’s no other way to say it except that he’s rude and mean and obnoxious. Rude to anyone who is not higher up the food chain than him…He’s actually extremely nice to the Vice Presidents, Controllers, and all the various other upper management bigwigs. Every conversation I have with him, though, seems confrontational. He gets really ticked when I need to get him to do something for me, displayed with a lot of deep sighs and curt answers. He doesn’t get the idea that IT is a support role in the manufacturing world.

I decided I was going to make a great effort to show this guy a lot of grace…You know, the whole thing about letting my light shine forth, showing the love of Jesus, etcetera, etcetera. He’s in his mid-forties, not married, no kids, prone to throwing cussing temper tantrums, and with this abrasive personality, I can’t imagine he has many relationships.

“He must be a sad, lonely man,” said I.

So, I was full of smiles and pleasantries even when all I got back were grunts and stony silent stares. I was determined to be a Good Christian and love the unlovely.

“Love is an action, not an emotion,” said I.

I was going to do What-Jesus-Would-Do. I told myself there was most likely a really sad reason he was so difficult: people had probably picked on him when he was a kid, his mother could have been mean to him, his father may have ignored him, and who knows what else. I even prayed for him. Yes. Yes, I did.

“Help him, God,” said I.

Until yesterday. That’s when he made me look bad with my boss. My boss asked why I had been ignoring his emails and that’s when I realized this IT guy had given me a new email address, sent it out to everyone, but failed to set my computer up so I could access the new account. So, for about six weeks, I had only been getting about half of my emails. Grrr! Out went the grace. Out went the love of Jesus. Out went my light. I was tired of being nice to someone so mean. I was tired of walking around on eggshells, asking please, always saying thank-you. I was tired of being barked at by him. Hadn’t he ever heard of customer service, for Pete’s sake! He was supposed to be nice to me, help me, speak nicely to me! I’m the customer here!

“This is enough!” said I.

So, I’ve grumbled. I’ve fussed. I’ve moaned. And I’ve carried on plenty of imaginary conversations in my head with this guy and to others about this guy. (Don’t you do that, too, when you’re angry with someone? Practice what you’re going to say?)

Then, it finally happened. It was inevitable. God weighed in on the subject. Driving to work this morning, I was having a conversation in my head with my boss about the IT guy.

“I have absolutely no use for him!” said I.

And God, in His ever straight-to-the-point, sword-in-the-heart way said, “Use? So, really it’s about what he can do for you. Are people for you to use? Are they just instruments, tools, to get done what you want? Have you thought that perhaps I have put this man in your life to teach you something about yourself? Perhaps about some sinful attitudes you have? A tendency to see people not as bearers of My image, but as things to further your purposes? Perhaps even the purpose to be seen as a Good Christian by Me, by others, and, mainly, by yourself? Maybe I’m trying to teach you to love someone, really love someone, like My Son loved you, when there was nothing given in return? He didn’t just speak nicely to you, smile at you, say thank-you…He died for you even while all you gave Him were grunts and stony stares, temper tantrums and rejection.”

“Forgive me,” said I.

Romans 5:6-11
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Face Blind

2008-01-09T18:05:00.000-08:00

Over the summer I read a book of essays in the genre of creative nonfiction. It was an excellent book, although I can’t recall the name of it and I’m much too lazy to get up and look for it right now. There was one essay by a woman who has a disease called prosopagnosia or face blindness. It’s the inability to tell people apart or to recognize other human beings by their faces. This particular woman could not recognize her children or her husband! Often, sufferers of this disease can’t even distinguish themselves. Typically, people with face blindness learn to rely on other characteristics to tell apart people such as hair style, clothing, and voice.

Why I am telling you about prosopagnosia? Well, first I think it’s interesting. But second, when I read this essay I starting thinking about a spiritual type of face-blindness I think I have. Sometimes, when I’m in a large group of people, I like to just look at all the different types of faces God has put together…the colors of skin and eyes, the shapes of noses and faces, the types of hair…It’s amazing when you really start looking and thinking about how varied we all are. In my day-to-day experience, though, I don’t usually look much deeper. I don’t recognize that I’m looking at the very image of God. Probably especially when I look at those closest to me, my husband and children, all I see is the usual and the ordinary. I have a type of blindness that causes me to fail to recognize that the person I am looking at, speaking to, working with, married to, or mothering, in some mysterious way, is a reflection or likeness of my Creator. Even that person I am angry with, disappointed in, scared of….they, too, carry His image. How, I don’t know. Is it in the eyes? In the way we think? In the way we love? Because we have a soul?

Father – help me to see You in those around me. Help me to honor that image in a way that is glorifying to You. Amen.

Genesis 1:26
Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

James 3:9
With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness.

Take Up Your Cross

2008-01-08T17:45:00.000-08:00

One brother wisely said, “The cross is usually exactly the opposite of what we thought it was.”

When suffering comes your way, there is one thing that you certainly will do: you will ask the Lord, “Why has this happened?” There is something else almost as certain.

You will receive no answer.

If the “why” could be removed, dear brother, most of the transforming power of the cross would disappear. The “why” factor of the cross is perhaps its sharpest, most effective, most deadly aspect. Remove the “why” factor of the cross and there really isn’t much suffering involved in it. – Gene Edwards in The Inward Journey

Proverbs 3:5-6
Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.

Matthew 16:24
Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

Psalm 119:8
I will obey your decrees; do not utterly forsake me.

Roads Not Built Up

2008-01-07T18:05:00.000-08:00

Last night I read Jeremiah 18 and 19. Verse 18:15 jumped out at me:

Jeremiah 18:15
Yet my people have forgotten me;

they burn incense to worthless idols,

which made them stumble in their ways

and in the ancient paths.

They made them walk in bypaths

and on roads not built up.

“Roads not built up…hmm….Walking in bypaths….on roads not built up…There were references in my Bible to two verses in Isaiah: 57:14 and 62:10:

Isaiah 57:14
And it will be said:

"Build up, build up, prepare the road!

Remove the obstacles out of the way of my people."

Isaiah 62:10
Pass through, pass through the gates!

Prepare the way for the people.

Build up, build up the highway!

Remove the stones.

Raise a banner for the nations.

These verses made me think of roads during Biblical times. We’ve all heard how the presence of the Roman Roads during Jesus’ time so greatly aided the spread of the Gospel. The Romans built over 53,000 miles of roads that connected every part of their empire. By hand! No huge tractors, no asphalt, no orange barrels. Just shovels, picks, sledge hammers…and plenty of men!

Here are the basic steps the Romans perfected in building roads:
First, the path was surveyed to make sure it would be built straight.
Second, roadbeds were dug three feet down and twenty-three feet across.
Third, as a foundation, the bed was filled with a layer of large gravel and sand.
Fourth, a layer of smaller gravel was put down and leveled, ensuring a slope that would allow rainwater to runoff.
Fifth, the Romans lined the sides of the bed with blocks and hand-carved stones.
Sixth, stones (often pentagonal) were fitted together to make the top layer.

Build up, build up the road! Remove the obstacles, remove the stones!

Oh that we could have such roads built for us to follow on our walk through this journey we are on! A road that is designed, planned, engineered to be perfectly straight. With a bed dug deep, to exact dimensions. A foundation poured that will hold the heaviest load without crushing. A second layer that smoothes everything and holds it all together. Finally, strong stones to line the bed, providing security, structure, along with stones on top, giving an even surface upon which to walk. Why can't our road be like this?

Jeremiah tells us one reason our walk may not be on such easy ground: My people have forgotten me, they burn incense to worthless idols, which make them stumble in their ways and in the ancient paths. They make them walk in bypaths and on roads not built up.

“But, I’m not burning incense to anything!” you might say.

Or, “I don’t bow down before any statue.”

But do you? Do we? I think if we could transport a woman from Biblical times to our time and she lived with us for just a few days, she could point out our household gods to us, our idols to which we pay homage. They might “look” different from her idols, but our actions toward them and beliefs about them are the same. Our idol might be money, or a house, or a reputation, or a child, or a job, or a husband, or a friend, or a ministry, or a wardrobe, or modern technology, or a marriage, or our physical beauty, or our intellect, ….

An idol is “an object that is worshiped.” What objects do you worship in your life? Have you forgotten God and put an idol in His place? Are you stumbling in the ancient path and walking in bypaths and on roads not built up?

Father, forgive me for the idols I have. They are not golden or openly displayed on my mantle. Instead, I’ve placed them deep inside my heart where I can go to visit them quietly everyday. Forgive me for the place I’ve given them and remove them from me. Help me to see them for exactly what they are…a replacement for You. Forgive my pride, my arrogance, my selfishness, my sin. Amen.

Contentment

2008-01-06T05:16:00.001-08:00

Being “contented” ought to mean in English, as it does in French, being pleased. Being content with an attic ought not to mean being unable to move from it and resigned to living in it; it ought to mean appreciating all there is in such a position.~ G.K. Chesterton

What a great definition for being contented! There are things in my life that I wish were different, as I’m sure you do, too. Material things…but also things about my personality and appearance…things about my relationships…opportunities I wish I had…etc. etc. etc. After reading this, I realize I’m not content about a lot of it; I’m just resigned. What a difference between resignation and contentment!

In the dictionary, contentment is defined as “happiness with one’s situation in life”; Resignation as “the acceptance of despair.”

Is there something in your life that you’ve just accepted and haven’t been able to appreciate anything about it? Maybe, like me, you should look at it a little differently today.

Here’s Paul’s famous verse about being content in Philippians:

I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. (Phil 4:12, emphasis mine)

What, dear Paul, was your secret exactly? Perhaps partly it was what he told Timothy:

6But godliness with contentment is great gain. 7For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. 8But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. (I Timothy 6:5-8)

Realizing that we brought nothing into this world and nothing we will take out of it…Is that the secret? We all say – “You can’t take it with you!”, but do we really live like that? Is food and clothing – and godliness (a great reverence for God, a deep relationship with Him) – enough for us? Usually not, for me anyway. I (we?) want more…more for us….more for our children…more…more…more…

God + Food + Clothes = Contentment

Hmmmm….Does your equation for contentment look like that? Or is it really more like this:

Designer Clothes + Beautiful House + Perfect Children + Doting Husband + Tons of Girlfriends + Adventurous Vacations + Captivating Work + Gourmet Dinners + Big Bank Account = Contentment

Are you pleased with what God has given you?

On the Beatitudes - Persecuted 2

2008-01-02T17:54:00.001-08:00

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:10

“A preliminary point of interest is that the promise attached to this Beatitude is the same as the promise attached to the first, ‘theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’ You start with the kingdom of heaven and you end with it. Our Lord started and ended with this particular promise in order to impress upon His listeners that the important thing was membership of the kingdom of heaven. Over and above all these particular blessings which we receive, and which we are to receive in greater measure and greater fullness, the great thing is that we are citizens of the kingdom of heaven and thus belong to that spiritual realm.” DMLJ

Here’s a link to the Alabaster Jars website where you can find information on the persecuted church, especially as it relates to women. This seems so far from our experience, but these women belong to the same church we do and are our sisters. Go to the “Issues” tab and choose “Persecuted Church” to read more.

On the Beatitudes - Persecution

2008-01-01T17:08:00.001-08:00

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:10

Below is Lynn’s summary of D. Martyn Lloyds chapter:

This Beatitude seems to be rather different from all the others in that it is not so much a positive description of the Christian as an account of what is likely to result because of what has gone before and because the Christian is what we have seen him to be. This is one of the most searching tests that we can ever face. This Beatitude has been frequently misunderstood and misapplied. It does not say, “Blessed are those who are being persecuted as Christians because they are seriously lacking in wisdom and are really foolish and unwise in what they regard as being their testimony.” It is for righteousness sake. Let us be very clear about that. We can bring endless suffering upon ourselves, we can create difficulties for ourselves which are quite unnecessary, because we have some foolish notion of witnessing and testifying, or because in a spirit of self-righteousness, we really do call it down on ourselves. Nor is it because of our particular make-up and temperament. This Beatitude does not even say, “Blessed are they that are persecuted for being good, or noble, or self-sacrificing.” The world, as a matter of fact, generally praises and admires and loves the good and the noble; it only persecutes the righteous.

What then does it mean? Being righteous, practicing righteousness, really means being like the Lord Jesus Christ. Those who are like Him will always be persecuted. By who are the righteous persecuted? Some of the most grievous persecution has been suffered by the righteous at the hands of the Church herself and at the hands of religious people. Formal Christianity is often the greatest enemy of the pure faith.

The good and the noble are very rarely persecuted because we all have the feeling they are just like ourselves at our best. But the righteous are persecuted because they are different. That was why the Pharisees and scribes hated our Lord. They felt all their righteousness was being made to look very tawdry. They hated Him just because of His utter, absolute holiness and righteousness and truth. Is our idea of what we call the perfect Christian nearly always that he is a nice, popular man who never offends anybody, and is so easy to get on with? But if this Beatitude is true, that is not the real Christian, because the real Christian is a man who is not praised by everybody. They do not praise our Lord, and they will never praise the man who is like Him.

Do we know what it is to be persecuted for righteousness sake? To become like Him we have to become light. Light always exposes the darkness, and the darkness therefore always hates the light. We are not to be offensive; we are not to be foolish; we are not to be unwise; we are not even to parade the Christian faith. But by just being like Christ persecution becomes inevitable.

Happy New Year!

2007-12-31T03:39:00.000-08:00

Cathy Middleton gave me a sweet little book for Christmas called Good Tidings of Great Joy. It’s a collection of quotes and scriptures. I thought for New Year’s Eve I would just share some of these with you for our devo of the day:

He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Revelation 21:5

Jesus points to the possibility of a life without worries, a life in which all things are made new. – Henry Nouwen

See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the LORD rises upon you and His glory appears over you. Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you. Isaiah 60:2,1

Long is our winter; Dark is our night; Come, set us free, O Saving Light! Fifteenth-Century German Hymn

Our Savior, the Dayspring from on high, has visited us, and we who were in darkness and shadows have found the truth! Byzantine Prayer

God appears and God is light
To those poor souls who dwell in night.
- William Blake

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light;
On those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.
- Isaiah 9:2

On the Beatitudes - Peacemakers 3

2007-12-30T15:24:00.000-08:00

Here's more on the Beatitudes...Usually, the third note I send you on a particular Beatitude is from Peter Kreeft's book and has to do with one of the seven deadly sins that he places in opposition to that particular Beatitude. Kreeft pits both meekness and peacemaking against the deadly sin of anger. So since we've already talked about what he had to say about anger, I've copied a devotion from John Piper on how anger can kill your marriage (ouch!). It's long, but it's worth it...Happy reading!

KILL ANGER BEFORE IT KILLS YOUR MARRIAGE
In marriage, anger rivals lust as a killer. My guess is that anger is a worse enemy than lust. It also destroys other kinds of camaraderie. Some people have more anger than they think, because it has disguises. When willpower hinders rage, anger smolders beneath the surface, and the teeth of the soul grind with frustration. It can come out in tears that look more like hurt. But the heart has learned that this may be the only way to hurt back. It may come out as silence because we have resolved not to fight. It may show up in picky criticism and relentless correction. It may strike out at persons that have nothing to do with its origin. It will often feel warranted by the wrongness of the cause. After all, Jesus got angry (Mark 3:5), and Paul says, "Be angry and do not sin" (Ephesians 4:26).

However, good anger among fallen people is rare. That's why James says, "Be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God" (James 1:19-20). And Paul says, "Men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling" (1 Timothy 2:8). "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you" (Ephesians 4:31).

Therefore, one of the greatest battles of life is the battle to "put away anger," not just control its expressions. To help you fight this battle, here are nine biblical weapons.

1. Ponder the rights of Christ to be angry, but how he endured the cross, as an example of long-suffering. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. (1 Peter 2:21)

2. Ponder how much you have been forgiven, and how much mercy you have been shown. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. (Ephesians 4:32)

3. Ponder your own sinfulness and take the beam out of your own eye. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, "Let me take the speck out of your eye," when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. (Matthew 7:3-5)

4. Think about how you do not want to give place to the devil, because harbored anger is the one thing the Bible explicitly says opens a door and invites him in. Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. (Ephesians 4:26-27)

5. Ponder the folly of your own self-immolation, that is, numerous detrimental effects of anger to the one who is angry - some spiritual, some mental, some physical, and some relational. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD, and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones. (Proverbs 3:7-8)

6. Confess your sin of anger to some trusted friend as well and as possible with the offender. This is a great healing act. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. (James 5:16)

7. Let your anger be the key to unlock the dungeons of pride and self-pity in your heart and replace them with love. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)

8. Remember that God is going to work it all for your good as you trust in his future grace. Your offender is even doing you good, if you will respond with love.And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:2-4)

9. Remember that God will vindicate your just cause and settle all accounts better than you could. Either your offender will pay in hell, or Christ has paid for him. Your payback would be double jeopardy or an offence to the cross. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." (Romans 12:19)

When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting [his cause] to him who judges justly. (1 Peter 2:23)

Fighting for joy and love with you,
Pastor John

By John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

On the Beatitudes - Peacemakers 2

2007-12-29T17:21:00.000-08:00

Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called sons of God.
Matthew 5:9

"The peacemaker is one who is not always looking at everything in terms of the effect it has upon himself. Now is not that the whole trouble with us by nature? We look at everything as it affects us. Now that is the spirit that always leads to quarrels, misunderstandings and disputes, and it is a negation of being a peacemaker.” DMLJ

The peacemaker has a new view of life, and this implies that she has a new view of others too. She is concerned about them and has come to see them objectively.The peacemaker does not talk about people when they are offensive and difficult. She understands that they are like that because they are still being governed by the god of this world. She also has a new view of the world.

“The peacemaker has only one concern, and it is the glory of God among men. He knows that God made man perfect, and that the world was meant to be Paradise, so when he sees individual and international disputes and quarrelling, he sees something that is detracting from the glory of God. He is a man who is ready to humble himself, and he is ready to do anything and everything in order that the glory of God may be promoted. He so desires this that he is prepared to suffer in order to bring it to pass. He is even prepared to suffer wrong and injustice in order that peace may be produced and God’s glory magnified.” DMLJ

First and foremost, being a peacemaker means learning not to speak. (Sometimes especially hard for us women!) Not only that, a peacemaker does not repeat things when she knows they are going to do harm. She views any and every situation in the light of the Gospel. A peacemaker goes out of her way to look for means and methods of making peace. We should be endeavoring to diffuse peace wherever we are. We do this by being selfless, lovable, approachable, and humble.

May God's peace rest on you and yours tonight. B.

On the Beatitudes - Peacemakers 1

2007-12-28T15:46:00.001-08:00

Almost throught the Beatitudes...on with being a peacemaker! Here's Lynn's introduction to this chapter in our study:

Blessed are the peacemakers,

for they will be called sons of God.

Matthew 5:9

Why are peacemakers blessed? The answer is that they are blessed because they are so absolutely unlike everyone else. They are people who stand out as being different from the rest of the world, and they’re different because they are the children of God. Why is there so much strife in this world? The answer is a theological and doctrinal one. The world has it all wrong. Why does the United Nations seem to be failing, or any of the other political institutions? The world doesn’t acknowledge sin. Until the heart is changed, you can never solve the problems. I know of nothing in Scripture that utterly condemns humanism and utopian thought as the Sermon on the Mount, but this passage has been the Liberals favorite passage. Our approach must be doctrinal and theological, not political and social.

What then is a peacemaker? Passively, we can say that he is peaceable, for a quarrelsome person cannot be a peacemaker. Then, actively, this person must be one who makes peace by taking action. He is a man who is finally and ultimately concerned about the fact that all men should be at peace with God. He goes out of his way to produce peace. You must not be sensitive, you must not be touchy, you must not be on the defensive. If you are, you will not be a very good peacemaker. The peacemaker is one who is not always looking at everything in terms of the effect it has upon himself. He has seen himself and has come to see that in a sense this miserable, wretched self is not worth bothering about at all. The peacemaker has only one concern, and it is the glory of God among men. He is even prepared to suffer wrong and injustice in order that peace may be produced and God’s glory magnified.

How does he work this out in practice? First and foremost it means that you learn not to speak. We are to be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath. We should also be endeavoring to spread peace wherever we are. We do this by being selfless, by being approachable, and by not standing on our dignity or pride.

On the Beatitudes - Pure in Heart 3

2007-12-27T16:16:00.000-08:00

Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
Matthew 5:8

Peter Kreeft places the Beatitude of pure in heart against the deadly sin of lust. Pure of Heart vs. Lustful of Heart. His chapter mainly focuses on thought life and the origin lust has there. He says:

"We must lay the axe to the root by operating on our very thoughs, as Saint Paul advices, "bringing every thought into captivity to Christ". We need a good brainwashing. Brainwashing is not propaganda; brain-dirtying is propaganda. Our thoughts are wild animals; only Christ can tame them. All we can do, all we need to do, is bring them to him - immediately. Thought is the rudder of life. As the poet Samuel Smiles says:

Sow a thought, reap an act.
Sow an act, reap a habit.
Sow a habit, reap a character.
Sow a character, reap a destiny.

Lust is like mud. Its opposite is like clear water, or clean air. It is called purity of heart."

On the Beatitudes - Pure in Heart 2

2007-12-26T16:51:00.000-08:00

Blessed are the pure in heart,

for they will see God.

Matthew 5:8

“The vision of God has always been regarded by God’s people as the summum bonum. It is the ultimate goal of every endeavor. To ‘see God’ is the whole purpose of all religion.” D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

In his book Sermon on the Mount, Lloyd-Jones tells us that there seems to be a pattern in the Beatitudes. He says that the first three (poverty of spirit, mourning, meekness) are all about us becoming concious of our NEED, our EMPTINESS. Then comes hungering and thirsting so we can be filled. From then on is the result of our being filled...merciful, pure in heart, peacemakers.

What does “pure” mean? One meaning is without hypocrisy or single. Pureness of heart refers to being ‘without folds’. It is open, nothing hidden. You could describe it as sincerity. Psalms 86:11 tells us that the trouble with us is our divided heart. Pure also carries a further meaning of ‘cleansed’ and ‘without defilement’. See Revelation 21:27 and 22:14. Being pure in heart is to be like our Lord Himself.

“Being pure in heart means we have an undivided love which regards God as our highest good, and which is concerned only about loving God. Reducing it further, it means that we should live to the glory of God in every respect and that should be the supreme desire of our life.” DMLJ

On the Beatitudes - Pure in heart 1

2007-12-23T09:27:00.001-08:00

Blessed are the pure in heart,

for they will see God.
Matthew 5:8

We can only approach these words with a sense of awe and of complete inadequacy. No one can ever exhaust this verse. Why is this statement here? You would have thought it should have been at the beginning. The purpose of all religion is to see God, but this wasn’t the first Beatitude. The first three Beatitudes emphasize the vital importance of a deep awareness of need. Then comes the great statement of the satisfaction of the need, God’s provision for it. Having realized the need, we hunger and thirst, and God comes and tells us we will be filled. We become merciful, pure in heart, and peacemakers. As we mourn over our sin, we mourn in such a way which alone leads us to cleansing and purity. The Christian faith is ultimately not only a matter of doctrine or understanding or of intellect, it is a condition of the heart. Doctrine is absolutely essential, but it isn’t just that. Christianity starts with asking what is the state of your heart?

What is the heart? It is the center of man’s being and personality; it is the fountain out of which everything else comes. So much teaching emphasizes that if we provide the right environment, man’s troubles will be cured. This totally overlooks the fact that it was in Paradise that man first fell! The trouble is in the heart, and the heart is desperately wicked and deceitful. That is the problem. Being pure in heart means to “love the Lord thy God with all they heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” We should live for the glory of God in all respects. We should desire to love and serve God with all our being.

This Beatitude will be partly fulfilled here and completely fulfilled in eternity. There is a seeing of God now in the sense of knowing God, a sense of enjoying His presence. “Now we see through a glass, darkly,” says Paul. John says, “And it doth not appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” You and I are meant for the audience chamber of God. You and I are being prepared to enter into the presence of the King of Kings. You and I are going to see and enjoy God.

But how can our hearts become pure? All self-cleansing is doomed to failure. All you and I can do is to realize the blackness of our hearts as they are by nature, and as we do so we shall join David in the prayer, “Create a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” It is God alone who can do it, by the cleansing of the Holy Spirit.

Is it your supreme objective, desire, and ambition to see God? I must do everything I can, and still know it is not enough. He must do it finally.

On the Beatitudes - Mercy 3

2007-12-22T12:46:00.000-08:00

Blessed are the merciful,

for they will be shown mercy.
Matthew 5:7

Appropriately after a morning spent shopping….Peter Kreeft in Back to Virtue places the Beatitude of giving mercy against the sin of getting things or avarice, also known as covetousness or greed. In his Summa, Saint Thomas defines avarice as the love of money, “the immoderate desire for temporal possessions which can be estimated in money.”

“Money is ubiquitously tempting because of a kind of umbrella principle, covering everything money can buy. It also is (or rather falsely promises to be) a security blanket against change. It apes divine self-sufficiency.” PK

Avarice, or greed, is not just a desire for possessions, but rather an excessive desire for them. Kreeft claims that it is natural for man to desire external things as means, but avarice makes them into ends, into gods. When a creature is made into a god, it becomes a devil.

Jesus was very interested in avarice because He spoke about it more than any other sin. Think about the times He talked about money – riches, possessions, mammon. He didn’t focus so much on lust and violence (like we tend to), but more on the sins that are more hidden and dangerous…those that are more socially acceptable.

Avarice has two parts: greed to get what we don’t have and greed to keep what we have. So, the two opposites of greed would be contentment and generosity (i.e. having mercy on others.)

So much of our society encourages competition and financial gain rather than contentment. I think about my own motives in pushing my kids, especially Sean and Ellen right now, to do well in school. What is my real fear if they don’t do well? Bottom line, I’m afraid they won’t get the “right” education to get the “right” job to make the “right” amount of money so they can live the “right” kind of comfortable life I expect for them. Whew! Also, greed flourishes in society because we are so bombarded with advertising appeals that exalt affluence. It’s everywhere.

Avarice is a great liar. It claims that happiness comes from possessing, from having things. In reality, happiness can come only from being, not having. Happiness is in the heart, the center of one’s being, and “the heart of man cannot hoard”, says George MacDonald.

On the Beatitudes - Mercy 2

2007-12-21T17:04:00.000-08:00

Blessed are the merciful,

for they will be shown mercy.
Matthew 5:7

With ‘Poor in Spirit’ we realized that face to face with God and His righteousness we are completely helpless. In ‘Mourning’ we have come to see the blackness of our own hearts. In ‘Meekness’ we have seen ourselves and realize that our greatest enemies do not know the worst about us. In ‘Hungering & Thirsting’ our greatest desire is what will put us right with God and reconcile us to Him and give us new natures and lives.

“If all this is true of me, I no longer see men as I used to see them. I see them now with a Christian eye. I see them as the dupes and the victims and the slaves of sin and Satan and of the way of the world. I differentiate between the sinner and his sin. I see everybody who is in a state of sin as one who is to be pitied.” D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“ To be truly repentant means that I realize I deserve nothing but punishment, and that if I am forgiven it is to be attributed entirely to the love of God and to His mercy and grace, and to nothing else at all. But if I go further, it means this: If I am truly repentant and realize my position before God, and realize that I am only forgiven in that way, then of necessity I shall forgive those who trespass against me.” DMLJ

The one condition of forgiveness is repentance. We proclaim whether we have received forgiveness or not by whether we forgive or not.

If I am not merciful there is only one explanation; I have never understood the grace and the mercy of God; I am outside of Christ; I am yet in my sins, and I am unforgiven. Are you merciful? Are you sorry for every sinner even though that sinner offends you? Have you pity upon all who are the victims and the dupes of the world and the flesh and the devil?

On the Beatitudes - Mercy 1

2007-12-20T15:49:00.000-08:00

Blessed are the merciful,

for they will be shown mercy.
Matthew 5:7

Now we move on and are concerned with the Christian’s disposition that results from everything that has gone before. These Beatitudes are built one upon the other and are never to be pulled out as random thoughts.

This Beatitude reminds us of certain primary, central truths about the whole Christian position. The Gospel places all its primary emphasis upon being, rather than doing. The greater weight is on our attitude rather than our actions. Before the Lord deals with action He describes character and disposition.

What is the meaning of mercy? The best way of approaching it is to compare it to grace. Grace is especially associated with men in their misery. While grace looks down upon sin as a whole, mercy looks especially upon the miserable consequences of sin. So mercy really means a sense of pity plus a desire to relieve suffering. It is pity plus action. God’s concern about the misery of men and women lead to an anxiety to relieve it. He saw our most pitiful state, He saw our suffering, and He came to relieve it.

The parable in Matthew 18 of the unrepentant servant is a great illustration of this. The man is forgiven great debt and yet he turns around and cannot forgive another. The reason is he wasn’t truly repentant as is shown in these verses we have been studying. The Beatitudes illustrate and describe the truly repentant man. To be truly repentant means that I realize I deserve nothing but punishment, and that if I am forgiven, it is to be attributed entirely to the love of God and to His mercy and grace and to nothing else at all. If I am truly repentant and realize my position before God, and I am only forgiven in that way, I shall forgive those who trespass against me. The progress of these Beatitudes up to this point leads us to show mercy to others.

We are to feel a great sorrow for all those who are helpless slaves of sin. That is to be our attitude. If I am not merciful there is only one explanation. I have never understood the grace and mercy of God.

(by Lynn Cross - summary from a chapter in D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones Sermon on the Mount)

On the Beatitudes - Hunger & Thirst 3

2007-12-19T13:21:00.001-08:00

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
Matthew 5:6

Peter Kreeft places the deadly sin of sloth against the Beatitude of hungering and thirsting after righteousness. He says that of all the Seven Deadly Sins, sloth is the most distinctively modern. Nothing so clearly distinguishes modern Western society from all previous societies as its sloth. This may sound silly, especially right now as we are all so busy, busy, busy getting ready for Christmas…and in general when we consider how fussy, fidgety, anxious, Martha-Stewart-like, ulcerated, and nervous breakdown prone we Americans are. We are hardworking Americans, aren’t we? We have the grossest national product. How can we even think we might be lazy? But it’s not laziness we’re talking about here, rather, it is slothfulness. There’s a big difference.

Saint Thomas defines sloth as “sorrow about spiritual good” or joylessness when faced with God as our supreme joy.

Peter Kreeft asks, “Why are we so busy? Why, in this great age of time-saving devices, does no one have any free time? Why, now that we have technology to do our labor, is life emptier of leisure than it ever was in pretechnological societies? What are we hiding from ourselves with all this pointless and unhappifying activism?” And he answers, “We are hiding ourselves; we hare hiding the God-sized hole in our hearts, the hole in the foundation of our existence. We try to paper the hole over with a thousand things, but they are all thin, and we know we will fall through the hole if we get too close. So we don’t. We avoid God’s absence as much as God’s presence. We are slothful.”

He goes on to say that there is a deep spiritual sorrow at the heart of modern civilization because it is the first civilization in all of history that does not know who it is or why it is, that cannot answer the three great questions: Where did I come from? Why am I here? and Where am I going?

Does this sound familiar? Saint Thomas also further described sloth as “an oppressive sorrow which so weighs upon a man’s mind that he wants to do nothing.” Sounds like a good description of depression.

“The danger in earlier ages was anger; ours is sloth, indifference, and depression. The cure for depression and sloth is simply faith, affirmation of the God who is here, acceptance of God’s offer of himself. No, something even less than faith will do. Faith is finding, but mere seeking overcomes sloth. For seeking becomes finding, and finding becomes joy, and joy overcomes sloth. Seeking means hungering. Thus the Beatitude that confronts sloth is the one about hungering.” Peter Kreeft

On the Beatitudes - Hunger & Thirst 2

2007-12-18T18:22:00.000-08:00

More on thirsting and hungering after righteousness…

The other Beatitudes have been causing us to look at and examine ourselves. Now, with this Beatitude, we are beginning to look for a solution and Jesus tells us the solution is righteousness. We are told not to hunger and thirst after happiness, but to seek righteousness. According to Scripture, happiness is never something that should be sought directly. It is always the result of seeking something else.

“Now the whole world is seeking for happiness; there is no question about that. Everybody wants to be happy. That is the great motive behind every act and ambition, behind all work and all striving and effort. Everything is designed for happiness. But the great tragedy of the world is that, though it gives itself to seek for happiness, it never seems to be able to find it.” D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Righteousness doesn’t mean the desire to be a moral person. It is the desire to be free from sin in all its forms and manifestations. It is the desire to be free from the power of sin. It is the desire to be free from the very desire of sin. And why should we desire these things? Because our sin separates us from God.

“The man who hungers and thirsts after righteousness is the man who sees that sin and rebellion have separated him from the face of God, and longs to get back into that old relationship, the original relationship of righteousness in the presence of God.” DMLJ

“Hunger is something deep and profound that goes on until satisfied. It hurts, it is painful; it is like actual, physical hunger and thirst. It is something that goes on increasing and makes one feel desperate. It is something that causes suffering and agony.” DMLJ

The woman who hungers and thirsts after righteousness is the woman who wants to exemplify the Beatitudes in her daily life. She wants to show the fruit of the Spirit in her every action and in the whole of her life and activity. The supreme desire in life is to know God and to be in fellowship with Him, to walk with God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in the light.

May we each desire to walk always with God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Good Night.

On the Beatitudes - Hunger & Thirst 1

2007-12-17T02:29:00.001-08:00

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Matthew 5:6

According to the Gospel, the trouble with mankind is not any one particular manifestation of sin, but rather sin itself. Here is the only way to true peace: to hunger and thirst after righteousness. This is a further description of the Christian. We have been looking at our own utter helplessness and weakness, our utter poverty of spirit, our bankruptcy in these spiritual matters. Having looked at ourselves, we have seen the sin that is within us that mars God’s perfect creation of man. Then we looked at meekness. Now we turn and look for the solution, for the deliverance from self for which we long. This emphasizes one of the most fundamental doctrines of the gospel, namely, that our salvation is entirely of grace or by grace, that it is entirely the free gift of God.

Is this hunger for blessedness or happiness? Since we seek for it so aggressively, it always eludes us. According to the Scriptures happiness is never something that should be sought directly; it is always something that results from seeking something else. Whenever you put happiness before righteousness, you will be doomed to misery. Think of it in terms of a doctor treating his patient. If all he did was eradicate the pain and not get rid of the disease the patient would be no better off. Pain is a wonderful symptom that is provided so it will call attention to the disease. So it is in life in general. Pain is a gift of God given to us to point us to the Savior. Happy are they who hunger (pain) and thirst after righteousness for they will be filled.

Righteousness here includes not only justification but sanctification also. The desire for righteousness means ultimately the desire to be free from sin in all its forms and in its every manifestation. It means a desire to be right with God and a desire to be free from the power of sin. We find that the man who truly examines himself in the light of Scripture not only discovers that he is in the bondage of sin; still more horrible is the fact that he likes it, that he wants it. He wants to be emancipated from self-concern in every shape and form. It is to long to be holy. It means that one’s supreme desire in life is to know God and to be in fellowship with Him.

What does it mean to hunger and thirst? It means a consciousness of our need, of our deep need. Hunger is something deep. It hurts. It is painful. The Psalmist said, “As the deer panteth for the water so my heart panteth after Him.” When the prodigal son was hungry he went to feed upon husks, but when he was starving, he turned to the Father.

On the Beatitudes - Meek 3

2007-12-16T05:23:00.000-08:00

Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
Matthew 5:5

Peter Kreeft places the deadly sin of anger as the opposite of meekness. I’ve struggled with anger in my life for a long time, probably always. I grew up in a home that had a lot of anger in it. It seemed that anger was always hiding below the surface in one form or another, simmering away. Periodically it would shoot forth in huge, loud, ugly outbursts. So – I pretty much inherited a spirit of anger and bitterness and have had to deal with it a lot in the past years. I still struggle with it, but I see God working and moving in my heart, slowly but surely, and that encourages me.

Here’s some excerpts from Peter Kreeft’s book Back to Virtue:

“What most people mean by “anger” is simply an emotion; and no emotion, merely as an emotion, is a sin, because we cannot directly control the arising of an emotion in our soul. Only when an element of the will is added is there any sin, including the sin of anger…The will can command an emotion to rise, to flourish, or to cease. The most common way in which the will comes in to make an emotion sinful or virtuous is by consent, which is basically the will’s approval or go-ahead to an emotion. When the emotion ought to be opposed and is not, the will sins. For instance, if we know we ought not to be as angry as we are toward someone, yet we continue to will that anger, we sin.

What makes the emotion of anger into the sin of anger are two things. First, as we have already seen, there must be the involvement of the will. Second, the anger must be inordinate, that is, wrong, irrational, too strong for the occasion or the person we are angry at.”

Boy! Does this speak to me! I’ve been, as I know we all have, in situations where anger is an appropriate emotion. But, oh how easily I let it become too strong and irrational! I read somewhere once that righteous anger is not a sin, but it has a very short life. After a very short time, it becomes sin in our own lives. More from Kreeft:

“In other words, getting angry at the wrong things, or getting too angry, is sinful, but getting rightfully angry, angry at the right things and to an appropriate degree, is not. The Psalmist implies this when he writes “Be angry, and sin not” (Psalm 4:4) Chrysostom also says, “He who is not angry when he has cause to be, sins. For unreasonable patience is the hotbed of many vices.” As a more contemporary source has it, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.””

So – if we are not angry when we should be, it’s sin. But if we become too angry in the process, that becomes sin, too. Whew! No wonder I struggle with anger.

“The worst thing about anger is that it tends to lead to hatred. Anger becomes a mortal sin, says Aquinas, “if through the fierceness of his anger a man falls away from the love of God and his neighbor”. Anger is not always contrary to love; we usually get angriest at those we love the most. But when anger becomes settled hatred, it is mortal sin. When anger’s heat turns to rigid coldness, it is rigor mortis.”

“And anger’s special danger is that it leads to the worst sin of all: hatred, the opposite of love, which is the greatest good. This is why hatred is not one of the seven capital sins, as Saint Thomas explains: it is not the source of further sins because it is as bad as you can get; it is the last stage of sin, the satanic stage. Satan is pure hatred, as God is pure love.”

“Settled hatred.” Interesting description, isn’t it? May we be meek, submitting ourselves before others, being angry as we should be at the evil of men, but not allowing our will to turn that anger into hatred.

On the Beatitudes - Meek 2

2007-12-15T04:31:00.000-08:00

Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
Matthew 5:5

Each Beatitude suggest the next and leads to the next. There is first the basis, the foundation, of being poor in spirit. Then we become aware of our sin which leads to a condition of mourning. Finally, we become meek. I think the Beatitudes also become more difficult as they continue. By being poor in spirit, we realize our weakness. In mourning, we realize our weakness.

“When we realize truly what we have to be, and what we have to do, we become inevitably ‘poor in spirit.’ That in turn leads to that second state in which, realizing our own sinfulness and our own true nature, realizing that we are so helpless because of the indwelling of sin within us, and seeing the sin even in our best actions, thoughts, and desires, we mourn.” D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Meekness is even more difficult than poor and spirit and mourning because it causes us to begin to be concerned with other people. Meekness is not a natural condition or a personality trait. When I used to think of the Beatitudes as a buffet table I could come to and pick and choose from, meekness was definitely not on my list. Who wants to be meek? I want to be strong, courageous, assertive. To be meek meant to be passive, allowing people to walk all over you, too shy to speak up for yourself. But, I was so wrong.

Meekness is basically a true view of oneself, expressing itself in attitude and conduct with respect to others. The meek woman lays claim to all her so-called “rights.” She does not make demands for her position, privileges, or status. And, here’s the really hard one for me: the meek woman is not always on the defensive. (Defensiveness is one of the greatest curses in life as a result of the fall and boy, do I suffer from it! Just ask Matt! What’s worse, I see it in my children, this inheritance of always defending themselves, always needing to be right. Ouch!) One last thing….the truly meek woman never pities herself. Hmm…..I’ve had quite a few pity parties lately.

“It also means that we are ready to listen and to learn; that we have such a poor idea of ourselves and our own capabilities that we are ready to listen to others. Above all we must be ready to be taught by the Spirit, and led by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Meekness always implies a teachable spirit.” DMLJ

Here are some questions for you: Can you think of any Christians you consider to be ‘meek’? Someone who you also think has great strength and authority and power? Do you resent it when others point out sin issues in your life? How do you normally react when confronted with your sinfulness by another? Are you defensive? Do you often pity yourself? How is being content and satisfied now the way meek people are already inheriting the earth?

On the Beatitudes - Meek 1

2007-12-14T19:46:00.000-08:00

Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
Matthew 5:5

We come to this Beatitude and again see that it is completely opposite what the world thinks. The world thinks in terms of strength and power, of ability, of self-assurance, and of aggressiveness. We are again reminded that the Christian is all together different from the non-Christian. He is a new creation, a new man who belongs to a new kingdom. This way of thinking was an enigma to the Jews. Most of them wanted only to overthrow Roman rule.

As we approach this statement let us first of all try to look at it in relationship to other Beatitudes. Clearly it follows on from what has gone on before. There is an obvious logical connection between these different Beatitudes. Each one leads to the next. The first Beatitude asks us to realize our own weakness and our own inability. It confronts us with having to face God. That in turn leads to us realizing our own sinfulness and our own true nature, realizing that we are so helpless because of the indwelling of sin with us. We now reach a point at which we begin to be concerned about other people. After all that has proceeded how much harder it is to live before people in a humble way. Look at Abraham and how he dealt with Lot. He allowed the younger man to make the top choice, and does it without complaint. Take Moses as he chose to identify with his brothers instead of choosing the royal household of Pharaoh. David is another example especially in his dealings with Saul.

How do we define meekness? First, meekness is not a natural quality. It is something produced by the Spirit of God. Meekness doesn’t mean weakness. Meekness is compatible with great strength and great authority and power. The meek are defenders of truth. The meek man is one who may so believe in standing for truth that he will die for it. Meekness is essentially a true view of oneself, expressing itself in attitude and conduct with respect to others. It is my attitude toward myself, and it is an expression of that in my relationship to others. This is an absence of pride toward others. The meek person does not glory in himself; he gives up his rights. Christ is our great example. The man who is meek is not always watching himself and his own interest. He is not always on the defensive. To be truly meek means we no longer protect ourselves. To be meek means you have finished with yourself altogether. The person who is meek is the one who is amazed that God and man can think of him as well as they do and treat him as well as they do.

The meek will inherit the earth? The meek already inherit the earth in this life. A man who is truly meek is a man who is always satisfied. He is a man who is already content.

Excerpt from D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ The Sermon on the Mount.

On the Beatitudes - Mourning 3

2007-12-13T19:36:00.001-08:00

Blessed are those who mourn,

for they will be comforted.
(Matthew 5:4)

Why do we say someone who is jealous turns green with envy? Most likely because the Greeks believed that jealousy was accompanied by an overproduction of bile, lending a pallid green cast to the victim.

In his book Back to Virtue, Peter Kreeft contrasts each beatitude with a “deadly” sin. Pride is contrasted with being poor in spirit. “Blessed mourning” is contrasted with “mourning at other’s blessedness” – otherwise known as envy. Envy can be defined as “sorrow at another’s good.” It is not the same as ambition or aspiration to attain the same type of good that another person has. Envy is also not looking up to someone else. We all need heroes. But, evil always counterfeits good and Satan has a very limited imagination. He takes aspiration and heroism, twists them slightly, and hands us the deadly sin of envy.

Aspiration looks up and says, “I aspire to be up there, too.” Envy looks up and says, “I want you to be below me.” So, we see that envy is essentially competitive and, to be competitive, you must be hyper-aware of everyone around you. When you are truly mourning over your own sins, you are not so focused on what everyone else has or does, but more on what is going on in your own heart.

Envy happens when we see things as non-sharable. Augustine expressed wonder at the discovery that, unlike material things, spiritual things do not diminish when shared. If you share money (material goods) with someone, you automatically have less of it. If you share love or knowledge (spiritual goods) with someone, your share is not diminished, but increased. The cure for envy is to experience this sharing, especially the sharing of love. “Love covers a multitude of sins.”

O! beware my lord, of Jealousy;

It is the green-ey'd monster which doth mock

The meat it feeds on.
(Act 3 of Othello)

On the Beatitudes - Mourning 2

2007-12-12T14:12:00.000-08:00

Blessed are those who mourn,

for they will be comforted.
(Matthew 5:4)

“The whole organization of life, the pleasure mania, the money, energy and enthusiasm that are expended in entertaining people, are all just an expression of the great aim of the world to get away from this idea of mourning and this spirit of mourning.” D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

What do you think of when you picture someone who mourns?

“Our Lord did not say those who mourn in a natural sense are not happy, meaning by ‘mourning’, the sorrow experienced because of the death of someone. No, this is a spiritual mourning. As we saw that poverty of spirit was not something financial, but something essentially spiritual, so this again is something entirely spiritual and has nothing to do with our natural life in this world. All these Beatitudes have reference to a spiritual condition and to a spiritual attitude.” DMLJ

Why do we not see much of a spirit of mourning in Christians today? Two reasons, I think. First, we sometimes believe that to be a Christian we must have the appearance of brightness and joviality. Unfortunately, this is not something that arises from within but is something we put on. It causes us to have one face we show everyone around us and another that is who we really are. Second, and more serious, we do not always have a true sense of our sin.

“We have to be poor in spirit before we can be filled with the Holy Spirit. Negative before positive. And here again is another example of exactly the same thing – conviction must of necessity precede conversion, a real sense of sin must come before there can be a true joy of salvation. Now that is the whole essence of the gospel." DMLJ

So many people are searching for the joy of the Christian life and so many are not finding it because they don’t see that they must first be convicted of sin before they can ever experience the joy of being forgiven. And the paradox is this: She who mourns shall be comforted, shall be blessed, happy. The person who truly mourns because of her sinful state and condition is a person who is going to repent. And she, who repents as the result of the Holy Spirit upon her, is a person who is certain to be led to the Lord Jesus Christ.

And it’s not only true at conversion. It is something that continues to be true about the Christian. When you find yourself guilty of sin, it casts you down and makes you morn. Then the mourning turns you back to Christ who gives you His peace and happiness. You are comforted. We follow this pattern the whole of our Christian lives.

“Thus the Christian life is spent this way, mourning and joy, sorrow and happiness, and the one should lead to the other immediately.” DMLJ

(Taken from Studies in the Sermon on the Mount by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Inter-Varsity Press, 1959-60, Chapter 5.)

On the Beatitudes - Mourning 1

2007-12-11T02:47:00.000-08:00

Blessed are those who mourn,

for they will be comforted.
(Matthew 5:4)

Before reading Martin Lloyd Jones’ book on the Sermon on the Mount, I used to read through the Beatitudes and pick which ones I wanted and which ones I didn’t. Mourning was definitely not one I wanted to have…who wants to be sad all the time? But now, I understand that mourning, especially mourning my sin, is necessary in order to have true joy. During our Bible study on the Beatitudes, Lynn Cross wrote an introduction to each lesson. Below is her introduction on “Blessed are they who mourn.” (Hope you don’t mind, Lynn!)

The world regards a statement like “Blessed are they that mourn” as ridiculous. That is the one thing the world tries to shun most – mourning. We hide from it like it was the plague. Forget your troubles. Don’t face them. Teach your kids not to mourn either. Teach them that they have to be happy all the time. The Bible says, “Happy are they that mourn.” This refers to a spiritual mourning. We have a defective doctrine of sin and therefore our joy is also shallow and not full. People spend all their lives trying to find Christian joy. Where they have failed is to see that they must be convicted of sin before they can ever experience joy.

The apostle Paul cried out “Wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24) Here is a man who was so grief-stricken about himself that he cries out in agony. A Christian man knows that experience of feeling utterly hopeless about himself and says about himself, as Paul did, “In me (that is in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing.” Some say Paul left that behind, that his struggling then ended. But Paul goes on to say in Romans 8:23 “And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves also, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.”

To mourn is something that follows of necessity from being poor in spirit. As I confront God and His holiness, and contemplate the life that I am meant to live, I see myself, my utter helplessness and hopelessness. I must mourn about the fact that I am like I am.

Some years ago, Peggy Noonan, a writer for the Wall Street Journal, wrote an article about September 11th and the effects it had on people. She likened it to a scene in the recent movie Black Hawk Down. As you recall, this movie depicted the real story of the Marines that gave their lives in Mogadishu. One scene describes how a soldier makes it back to the helicopter and announces to his sergeant that he had been shot. All the sergeant could reply was, “We’ve all been shot.” How often I have cried out to God and mourned over that fact that we have all been shot. Also, in the movie The Lord of the Rings, Frodo looks at Gandolf and, with tears in his eyes, he mourns the fact that the ring had come to him. We could all do the same.

In Romans, after crying out “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me?” Paul turns around and says, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” This is what follows if we truly mourn. We shall truly rejoice. We shall be comforted.

This is not only true of conversion, but of the whole Christian life. The Christian finds himself guilty of sin, and at first it casts him down and makes him mourn. But that in turn drives him back to Christ, and then he is comforted. Because of Christ’s absolute forgiveness, I have been forgiven! The Christians knows that the sufferings of this age will not be compared to the glory that will be revealed.

On the Beatitudes - Poor in Spirit 3

2007-12-10T13:48:00.000-08:00

To finish up with poor in spirit, I’ve got a poem by Eugene Peterson and a passage Bruce used in a sermon a year or so ago. I think the poem is beautiful and the passage is, well, CONVICTING!

This poem by Eugene Peterson is called The Lucky Poor:

A beech tree in winter, white
Intricacies unconcealed
Against sky blue and billowed
Clouds, carries in his emptiness
Ripeness: sap ready to rise
To leaf. And then after a season
Of summer a lean ring to remember
The lush fulfilled promises.
Empty again in wise poverty
That lets the reaching branches stretch
A millimeter more towards heaven,
The bole expand ever so slightly
And push roots into the firm
Foundation, lucky to be leafless:
Deciduous reminder to let it go.

Lastly, here’s a passage that made a huge impact on me. I think it sums up what being poor in spirit is really about: dying to self. It’s from one of Bruce’s sermons. I don’t know who the author is.

When you are forgotten, or neglected, or purposely set at naught, and you don’t sting and hurt with the insult or the oversight, but your heart is happy, being counted worthy to suffer for Christ, that is dying to self.

When you are content with any food, any offering, any raiment, any climate, any society, any solitude, any interruption, by the will of God, that is dying to self.

When you never care to refer to yourself in conversation or to record your own good works, or itch after commendation, when you can truly love to be unknown; that is dying to self.

When you can see your brother prosper and have his needs met, and can honestly rejoice with him, and feel no envy or question God, while your own needs are far greater and in desperate circumstances; that is dying to self.

When you can receive correction and reproof from one of less stature than yourself, and can humbly submit inwardly as well as outwardly finding no rebellion or resentment rising up within your heart; that is dying to self.

Whew! That’s tough! May we all take one step further tonight in dying to ourselves. B.

On the Beatitudes - Poor in Spirit 2

2007-12-09T14:49:00.000-08:00

Let’s continue with “Poverty of Spirit.” We finished yesterday by saying that poverty of spirit is humility. What is humility? Humility is thinking less about yourself not thinking less of yourself. Pride is not pleasure in being praised, wanting to please others. The truly proud person could care less what others think of her.

The opposite of pride is not despair, but humility or poverty of spirit. Pride and despair are twin sisters. They encourage each other. There is a secret pride in despair or self-pity – a tragic grandeur, a claim unfulfilled. Despair or self-pity says look at me, I deserve better than this, what is God thinking? Humility keeps us from pride and keeps us from despair. The greatest virtue keeps us from the greatest vice. God hates pride mostly because it is hellish in that it keeps us from knowing God, our supreme joy. Pride looks down, and no one can see God but by looking up. Pride has ingrown eyeballs, humility stares outward in self-forgetful happiness.

So, poverty of spirit is humility. Scripture tells us in Isaiah 57:15 that God dwells with those who are contrite and lowly in spirit. We see this spirit in Gideon when the LORD came and sat under a tree and talked with him. Gideon asked how could he, the least of men in the weakest of tribes, save Israel? We see this spirit in Moses, who felt deeply unworthy of the task to lead his people to freedom. We see this spirit in David, when he asks the Lord, “Who am I, that you should come to me?” We see it in Isaiah, who cries out, “I am a man of unclean lips.” In the New Testament we see this poverty of spirit in Peter – the typical modern man of the world, confident and believing in himself. But yet even he says, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man!” And we see it in Paul, with plenty accomplishments to be proud of, who gives us a list in Philippians, but yet he counts it all as nothing in the light of having Christ. But most of all, we see this spirit in Christ, who, though he was equal with God, clothed himself in our weak flesh and lived among us and said, “I can do nothing of myself, but all through the Father.”

Poverty of spirit is a complete absence of pride, a complete absence of self-assurance and of self-reliance. It means a consciousness that we are nothing in the presence of God. It is nothing we can produce; it is nothing with can do within ourselves. It is a tremendous, awful, but joyful awareness that we are nothing as we come face to face with God. And this is important…it is not what we feel when we compare ourselves with each other and find ourselves lacking…that too is pride…that is the competitiveness of pride. We say so-and-so is proud that they are rich, or that they are beautiful, or that they are smart, or whatever it might be. But no, it is that they are richer, more beautiful, or smarter. It is their comparison to others that gives them pleasure. That is pride. Pride is essentially competitive. And it is also pride, not humility or poverty of spirit, when we compare ourselves to others and say, “Oh, she is smarter, richer, prettier, more capable than me! “ Don’t mistake your feeling lesser than others as humility. That is only another manifestation of pride. Poverty of spirit is about you and God, about you in the presence of God. How do you really feel about yourself as you think of yourself in the presence of God?

Poverty of spirit is an emptying, a detaching of ourselves from the things of this world. The glue that holds us to them is pride, and the solvent that gets us free is humility. There is a power in this emptiness, because now we can be filled, now we can be used. A full bowl has no use. When you fill it up, you take away its potential, its possibility. Spiritually, our strength is in our emptiness, in coming to God with empty hands, so that He might fill them. If we come with full hands, he finds no place to put Himself.

The first time Christ came, there was no room for him in the inn. And often, there is no room for him now in our spiritual inns when he comes and knocks on our doors. The hard thing we must do is kick out the present tenants. A.W. Tozer calls these tenants “hyphenated sins of the human spirit.” They are not something we do, they are something we are. They are self-righteousness, self-pity, self-confidence, self-sufficiency, self-admiration, self-love, and a whole host of others like them.

How do we kick these guys out? The answer is not that you look more at yourself with your inward eyeballs of pride. Not concentrate more on yourself. The way to become empty, to become poor in spirit, in ordered to be filled, is to look at God. To look up, not down. Read His Word, look at Christ. Yield and trust. Confess, forsake, repent.

Lord, how wonderful are your ways and how devious and dark are the ways of man. Show us how to die, that we may rise again in a new life. Show us how to be empty that we might be filled with You. Tear the veil of self-life from the top down as you tore the veil of the temple. We want to draw near to You. We want to be with You in our daily experience here on earth so that we will be comfortable with Your glory when we enter your heaven to be with You forever. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

On the Beatitudes - Poor in Spirit 1

2007-12-08T16:39:00.000-08:00

Around six years ago Lynn and I read Martin-Lloyd Jones’ Sermon on the Mount together. It was an awesome experience for both of us. From that a Bible Study developed and later, a women’s Sunday school class. I’ve been going over my notes and thought over our Christmas break I would share some of these notes with you. It’s good for me to go through these ever so often…

Until Lynn and I did this study, I always thought of the Beatitudes as a kind buffet table, where I could pick and choose which ones I thought I naturally had a tendency toward and therefore could claim the reward or ones that I thought would be most like to have. Poor in spirit was never one of my choices! I thought I could work towards having specific characteristics and get the rewards promised. I never understood that each and every one of these Beatitudes are meant for each and every Christian! They have nothing to do with our natural tendencies or our desires. They are not a buffet table to pick and choose from. Each one builds on the other. One thing that has been so impressed on me while studying Christ’s Beatitudes is the logical progression of them, the building of one upon another. You have to start with the first to reach the others. It is a progression.

So, with that said, poor in spirit is the first beatitude and is the key to all the others. Being poor in spirit is the first prerequisite for membership in Christ’s Kingdom. It is the fundamental characteristic of the Christian. All the other characteristics are in a sense the result of this one. Being poor in spirit is really about being empty, while all the others are about being filled. And we cannot be filled until we are first empty.

What does it mean to actually be poor in spirit? If this is the fundamental characteristic of all Christians, the prerequisite of being part of the Kingdom of Heaven, then what is it really? What does it look like? First - what it is not. Poor in spirit is not about being poor in worldly goods. Many have taken it to mean this. There is no merit or advantage in being poor. Poverty does not guarantee spirituality. If you read this same beatitude in Luke 6, it says blessed are the poor for yours is the kingdom of heaven….I think this is not talking about worldly goods, but that you do not rely on worldly riches. There are many poor people who rely on riches exactly as many rich people do. They seek after worldly goods, think if only they had this or that, life would be good, and they are jealous of those who have more than they do. So poor in spirit is not about the lack of worldly goods. However, I do think it is about not having an attachment to worldly things. I think part of it is changing our heart’s allegiance, of detaching ourselves from the things of this world, of dissolving the spiritual glue that holds us to Satan’s kingdom so that we are now free to belong to Christ.

Also, poor in spirit is not being weak-spirited or lacking in courage. It is not a suppression of personality. There is even the temptation to think that poor in spirit means making a great sacrifice or retiring out of life and its difficulties and responsibilities like many monks of old did.

So again, what does being poor in spirit look like? Often, we learn best by looking at opposites. So let’s look at the exact opposite of being poor in spirit. Peter Kreeft in his book Back to Virtue takes each of the seven deadly sins and contrasts it with the beatitudes. Against greed he places mercy, against envy he places mourning, against wrath he places meekness and peacemaking, against sloth he places hungering and thirsting for righteousness, against lust he places purity of heart, against gluttony he places bearing persecution, and against PRIDE he places being poor in spirit.

Aristotle, the great pagan Greek thinker, born in about 384 BC, developed a list of ten virtues: courage, temperance, generosity, good temper, truthfulness, wittiness friendliness, modesty, righteous indignation, and pride. His definition of pride was a desire for honors. He said if you had too much pride, it was called vanity and if you had too little pride you were humble. Sometime around the 6th century, Christians developed a list of the seven deadly sins of which pride was thought to the “deadliest”, the greatest sin, the one from which all other sins flow. Nothing distinguishes Christian morality from pagan morality more sharply than the opposite attitudes toward pride.

C.S. Lewis wrote:
There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people except Christians ever imagine that they are guilty of themselves…There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves. And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others.

Pride is the first and greatest sin because it is the violation of the first and greatest commandment, “You shall have no other gods before me.” Pride puts self before God. Pride loves yourself with all your heart and soul and mind and strength rather than God. Pride is self-assertion, selfishness; poverty of spirit is humility, selflessness.

Hound of Heaven

2007-12-07T20:48:00.000-08:00

Happy Friday! This one is a joint effort by B and Sondie who are trying desperately to get 6 little girls to bed as we finish baking our 6 dozen cookies (12 dozen total) to take to Neal Middleton's in the morning. I think I 've eaten at least a dozen myself. Ugh!

As we were discussing our devo for today...looking over some things, we found this in my Bible. It is a quote from one of B's Sunday School lessons. It reminded us of the great author of our stories...who is also the main character (not us!). The one who pursues us, rescues us, loves us. Be reminded that He is pursuing you!

Excerpt from Hound of Heaven by Francis Thompson
I fled Him down the nights and down the days.
I fled Him down the arches of the years,
I fled Him down the labyrithine ways,
Of my own mind; And in the mist of tears
I hid from Him and under running laughter
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
Down titantic glooms of chasmed fears
From those strong Feet that followed, that followed after.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbed pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat-and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet-
"All things betray thee, who betrayest Me."

Night,
B & S

PS. Recipe for our favorite cookie recipe of the 6 different kinds we made.

Cranberry Drop Cookies

1/2 c butter (softened) 3 c All-purpose flour
1 c sugar 1 tsp baking powder
1 c packed brown sugar 1/2 tsp salt
1 egg 1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 c milk 12 oz frozen or fresh cranberries
2 Tbs lemon juice 1 c chopped walnuts

In mixing bowl cream the butter and both sugars. Add the egg, milk and lemon juice, mix well. Combine dry ingredients, then add to creamed mixture, mix well. Mix in cranberries and nuts. Drop by heaping teaspoons 2 inches apart onto greased baking sheets. Bake at 375 degrees for 13 -15 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool on wire racks. Makes approx 5 dozen.

On Jesus Healing Women - 4

2007-12-05T12:22:00.000-08:00

Here’s the last miracle story on Jesus healing women. We find the story of the crippled woman in only one Gospel: Luke chapter 13.

10On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, 11and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. 12When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, "Woman, you are set free from your infirmity." 13Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.

We find this woman on the Sabbath in the Synagogue where Jesus is teaching. We don’t know how old she is, but we do know she has been crippled for a long time – 18 years. She was bent over, hunched, never able to look up to see where she was going. I would imagine that she saw more of the ground than she did of the sun or the clouds or the birds. Because she is in the synagogue, we learn she is in someway seeking God. Perhaps she has been a faithful Jew all her life despite her suffering. Perhaps she had learned that Jesus would be there and had heard of His healing abilities. We’re not sure, but we are not told that she called out to Him, or that she asked for her healing. We are just simply told that Jesus saw her…I’m sure her suffering was so obvious He couldn’t have missed picking her out of the crowd. He called her up to Him and spoke words of healing, “You are set free,” and placed His hands on her. What did she immediately do? Praised God!

I learn from this woman to be obedient and put myself, like she did, in places that I know I should be if I want to draw closer to Jesus and to be healed of my crippled heart. It doesn’t matter if I’m hurting, if it’s obvious that I’m burdened….I need to be present to Jesus anyway. I need to come with all my “stuff.”

Are you putting yourself in places you where you know Jesus will show up? Are you reading His Word? Are you worshipping with His people? Are you fellowshipping with other Christians? (One way you are is by coming to study group!)

Jesus sees our pain and suffering whether we are too broken and bent to even reach up to Him. Have faith in His love for you and His ability to heal.

Deliquescent

2007-12-04T16:56:00.000-08:00

Deliquescent – adj (del-i-kwes’ent)
1. To melt away.
2. To disappear as if by melting.
3. Chemistry To dissolve and become liquid by absorbing moisture from the air.
4. Botany
a. To branch out into numerous subdivisions that lack a main axis, as the stem of a myrtle or elm.
b. To become fluid or soft on maturing, as certain fungi.

I found deliquescent in a list of favorite words on the internet. The person who posted it said he loved the way the word’s spoken sound mimics one of its meanings - ‘to melt away.’

“Deliquescent. Del-i-kwes’ent.” I suppose it does have a pleasing sound to the ear.

In chemical terms, deliquescent refers to a substance that is so dry as to be able to pull water from the air and cause a transformation from solid to liquid form. In botanical terms, deliquescent describes a type of tree branching in which many divisions and subdivisions occur that render the tree without a central axis. An example would be a myrtle tree. The opposite type of branching is called excurrent and is seen in conifers such as pine trees. These types of trees have one large dominant trunk from which all the other branches grow.

Considering these words, deliquescent and excurrent, made me compare my life, my Christian walk, to these two types of trees: a myrtle tree and a pine tree. A myrtle tree has many branches on which fruit (flowers) can grow. Often these trees have beautiful leafy crowns, lovely boughs in which to climb, and lots of shade for shelter. As the world begins to chill, their greenery turns to magnificent reds, golds, and oranges until they lose their leaves altogether and stand naked in the elements. (There are many different species of myrtles other than the ornamental pink-flowered trees we see so often in the South.)

A pine tree is strong and stately, soaring heavenward with a thick bark-coated trunk, evergreen through all the seasons – steady, well-designed, and noble. The heights a pine tree can reach seem to arrogantly defy gravity. My neck cranes back as I stand beneath a great pine and try to find its tip. You need a good distance to be able to really see a large pine tree in total. During a fierce storm, a pine will sway with mighty graceful arcs and limber beauty as it dances with the wind.

Are we to be myrtles, reaching out to stretch and spread and swell? Roots wandering deep and wide in the soil of Christ, do we branch out to provide comforting shade for others, grow limbs heavy-laden with fruit of the Spirit, and speak with a colorful truth and beauty that bursts forth even as the world moves farther from the sun?

Are we to be pines, reaching ever upward, trying to touch heaven itself with one great root anchoring us firmly to the ground, drawing life-giving water from the depths of God’s Word? Does Christ’s light shine from within us, forever green, fresh, and fragrant? Do we move through life’s storms with grace, swaying rhythmically without fracture or splinter?

In Creation God speaks and in these two trees I hear His voice tonight. I am to be like the myrtle, spreading and growing, providing strong limbs into which others can climb and cool shade where they can rest. But, I am also to be like the pine, strong, straight, and always green, weathering the gales to reach for heaven yet another day, pointing always quietly upward.

Deliquescent or excurrent - I pray my heart be true to heed these breezy whispers that stir the needles and the leaves tonight.

Isaiah 55:11-13
11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth:

It will not return to me empty,

but will accomplish what I desire

and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
12 You will go out in joy

and be led forth in peace;

the mountains and hills

will burst into song before you,

and all the trees of the field

will clap their hands.
13 Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree,

and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.

This will be for the LORD's renown,

for an everlasting sign,

which will not be destroyed."

The trees are God's great alphabet:With them He writes in shining greenAcross the world His thoughts serene.~Leonora Speyer

For in the true nature of things, if we rightly consider, every green tree is far more glorious than if it were made of gold and silver. ~Martin Luther

And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything. ~William Shakespeare

We all travel the milky way together, trees and men... trees are travellers, in the ordinary sense. They make journeys, not very extensive ones, it is true: but our own little comes and goes are only little more than tree-wavings - many of them not so much. ~John Muir, Scribner's Monthly, November 1878

On Healing Women - 3

2007-12-03T15:19:00.000-08:00

On to the third miracle of Jesus healing a woman…in this case a young girl. In this story, the girl who was healed, like Peter’s mother-in-law, did not reach out to Jesus, but another reached out for her. We see this story in Matthew 15:21-28 and in Mark 7:24-30.

Matthew 15:21-28
21Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession."

23Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, "Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us."

24He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel."

25The woman came and knelt before him. "Lord, help me!" she said.

26He replied, "It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs."

27"Yes, Lord," she said, "but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table."

28Then Jesus answered, "Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted." And her daughter was healed from that very hour.

Mark’s version tells us that Jesus was trying to get away with His disciples when He went to Tyre and did not want His presence known. It sounds like Jesus was trying to get a little break away from the crowds and speaking engagements. But this mother heard about Jesus being there anyway as I’m sure many others did. She was a Canaanite, not a Jew, not one of the chosen. But she recognized His power and came to Him on behalf of her daughter who was possessed by a demon. Matthew tells us that when she first made her way to kneel at His feet and made her request, she was greeted with His silence. But apparently, she kept crying out to Him, because His disciples pleaded with Him to send her away since she was making such a loud commotion. She asked Him to heal her daughter again, and this time Jesus tells her He has come for the Jews first. Her response seems quick-witted to me – “Yes, but even dogs get crumbs, Lord!” Seeing great faith in her persistence Jesus tells her that the child had been healed. There was no questioning, no doubting, from her. The mother simply went home and found what Jesus had spoken had indeed come to be.

In this miracle story, I see a woman whose first entreaty to Jesus on behalf of her daughter was met with stony silence. I see a woman who was not discouraged by His silence and continued to make her presence and need known to Him. I see a woman who was quick to humble herself before the Lord and be satisfied with the scraps from His table. I see a woman whose faith was so great that she believed Jesus’ simple spoken word. May I, and you, be like this Canaanite woman as we lift our children before His throne.

On Jesus Healing Women - 2

2007-12-02T11:34:00.000-08:00

Continuing with looking at the women that Jesus healed, let’s look at the bleeding woman. Her story is found in Matthew 9:20-22, Mark 5:25-29, and Luke 8:43-48. Here’s Dr. Luke’s version of the miracle story:

As Jesus was on his way, the crowds almost crushed him. 43And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years,[a] but no one could heal her. 44She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped.

45"Who touched me?" Jesus asked.

When they all denied it, Peter said, "Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you."

46But Jesus said, "Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me."

47Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. 48Then he said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace."

From this story we see first, unlike Peter’s mother-in-law, this woman sought Jesus out. She must have heard of Jesus. She must have known something of His power and ability to heal. She saw the crowds following after Him, pressing through the crowds to touch just the hem of His robe. We see that her suffering had been great, lasting for twelve years and eating away all her savings as she sought out man’s healing - only to grow worse.

How was she healed? Not by Jesus reaching out to her as He did with Peter’s mother-in-law, but by her reaching out, touching, Him. Jesus immediately knew He had been touched, that He had been reached, that His power, the Power of God, had flowed through Him to another, causing healing. The bleeding woman knew immediately that upon touching Him, she had been healed.

After being healed, the woman tells everyone present what she had done, and probably with some embarrassment, why. She revealed her sickness and Jesus’ healing. Jesus, seeing her faith, tells her to go in peace.

What about you? Have you been sick and now need to reach outside of yourself to Jesus? Do you need to fight through the crowds and press yourself against Him, the only true source of health? Has Jesus healed you and now you need to share with others what you have gone through and how you have been healed?

Go in peace.

On Jesus Healing Women

2007-12-01T17:06:00.000-08:00

As we’ve been talking about wounds in our Sacred Romance study, I’ve been thinking about how Jesus healed people while He was here on earth. There are thirty-five unique miracle stories told to us in the four Gospels. Three involve Jesus raising people from the dead. Nine show His power over nature. Twenty-three are related to healing. Of those twenty-three, four involve women. Let’s look at the first one, Peter’s mother-in-law. This story is told to us by Matthew, Mark, and Luke. (Matthew 8:14-15, Mark 10:30-31, and Luke 4:38-39) I like the visual picture Mark’s version gives:

30Simon's mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told Jesus about her. 31So he went to her, took her hand and helped her up. The fever left her and she began to wait on them.

Also, in Luke’s story, we are told that Jesus “rebuked the fever.”

What do we see from this miracle? First, others brought Jesus to her. She did not call out to Him. She did not seek Him out. We don’t even know if she knew about Him at this point in His ministry. Had Peter told his mother-in-law about Jesus yet? We can’t know. But, we do know she was suffering with a fever. In the time of Jesus, without modern medicines like antibiotics, a fever was a very serious, often life-threatening illness. I love the way Jesus simply (and I imagine gently) takes her hand, rebukes the fever, and helps her up. What did she do? She immediately (‘at once’ according to Luke) began to serve Him and His followers.

So – some questions for you:

Did someone bring Jesus to you? Who was it? Are you openly bringing Jesus with you into every house, every store, every school, every office, every hospital that you go into?

Has Jesus healed you in a similar way as He did Peter’s mother-in-law? Jesus can (and will) rebuke (tell off, reprimand, chase away) whatever it is that is keeping you sick in bed. And notice that after He healed her, He didn’t leave her lying in the bed. He helped her up. Do you sense Jesus helping you to get out of your sick bed?

What did she do once she was healed and had been helped out of her bed? She immediately began to serve Jesus and the disciples. There is something Jesus has called each of us to do for the Kingdom of God…some way that we are to serve Him and His followers. He has healed us of broken hearts. Are you serving Him?

Shells Upon the Shore

2007-11-30T16:13:00.000-08:00

OK – I hope the above picture doesn’t seem too morbid to you, but I read this passage while I was in Louisiana for Thanksgiving and it’s given me such a vivid visual picture in my mind, I had to share it with you:

“Casey, who has spent a great deal of time with dying people, especially dying children, and who hears their messages to the rest of us with astonishing, sometimes unnerving clarity, altered permanently the way that I think about cemeteries, and hence about death, and hence about life, and hence about where we are. She said, without any fanfare, without any signal that she thought the idea remarkable, that when she visits a cemetery she thinks of herself as on a shore of the ocean of eternity, and the tombstones are the shells upon the shore.” – Patrick Henry in The Ironic Christian’s Companion

This came from a chapter entitled, “On Where We Are.” Henry ruminates on the idea of eternity…and our place in it. There are so many ideas offered to us about where exactly we are. Is this God’s footstool? Are we stuck in a vale of tears? Are we really in the devil’s playground? Or is this a garden of delights? Maybe we are condemned to a prison? Perhaps this is a pilgrimage route, a sort of proving ground? Possibly we’re on a random spec of rock where the wonder of organic life was ‘miraculously’ able to take root and grow? Or better yet, maybe this is all just a dream and “here” isn’t “anywhere!”

When Copernicus placed the sun at the center of our galaxy and not us, how terrified that must have made people feel. So unimportant. So nominal. So insignificant. Not the center, after all. Now, our space technology is telling us more and more. The Hubble Space Telescope recently informed us that there are about fifty billion other galaxies out there! About 5 times more than we previously thought. FIFTY BILLION! Can you imagine? It makes my brain throb! Not only are we not the center, we are only one of FIFTY BILLION! At least!

So – back to Henry’s quote likening standing in a cemetery to standing on the shore of eternity…Where exactly is this shore?

The Bible tells us we are on a planet that was graced by a visit from the Eternal God who made all FIFTY BILLION of those galaxies! And this was not just a pleasure vacation or a look-see visit. He stepped down from Eternity and fully immersed Himself into Time to repair what we had so completely messed up. He lived with us, He ate with us, He walked with us, He cried with us. And then, He died for us. He came to pay the painful price that would redeem us and save us from our misery and death. In chapter 17 of the Gospel of Matthew, we are given a little glimpse of Jesus stepping out of Time and back into Eternity, commonly called the Transfiguration. For just a moment Peter, James, and John got a clearer view of Eternity. Standing on the shore, they saw a little farther.

Matthew 17:1-3
After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.

Patrick Henry’s passage made me think about where we really are….and what we are destined for. He reminded me that there is more than just this earth, and that death will whisk me out of Time and into Eternity. He reminded me that because I believe in my heart that Jesus is Lord and that God raised Him from the dead, I will be saved from an Eternity of Hell and instead live in an Eternity of Love, Beauty, Peace, Joy, and Truth. My tombstone will just be a marker, a shell on the sandy shore, an indication that she who once walked in Time is now dancing in Eternity with her Lord. Amen!

Cisterns

2007-11-28T19:03:00.001-08:00

Ever thought about all the “stuff” you carry around every day? I’m not talking about physical garbage – although a quick inventory of my truck reveals a plethora of junk ranging from a pair of Mary’s underwear (clean) to a training video and instruction booklet on forklift safety. (I have got to get around to cleaning it out!) No, what I’m thinking of is the emotional baggage we carry around that sucks energy and life from us – things like disappointment, anger, fear, worry, shame, anxiety….

What is it that you carry every day? Is there a hurt that you just can’t seem to forgive? Is there a gnawing fear of something you are afraid God will allow to happen in the future? Is there shame hanging around your neck from your past? How do I (we) let these things go? There’s the saying we all know, “Time heals all wounds.” But, is that true? It seems very doubtful to me. Time makes my hurt, disappointment, shame, fear maybe not so sharp, so cutting. They are still there, though, lurking in the shadows of my mind, waiting for an opportune time to come out and yell, “Surprise! I’m still here!”

Jeremiah 2:13
My people have committed two sins:

They have forsaken me,

the spring of living water,

and have dug their own cisterns,

broken cisterns that cannot hold water.

I read this verse a couple of days ago, and it has come to my mind often since. (I’ve learned to pay attention when that happens.) The Lord (through Jeremiah) tells the people of Israel that their two great sins are connected. First, they have turned away from their God, the true source of life, the spring of living water. Second, after leaving Him they have turned to their own human made source of water - pots that leak. It seems silly.

Well – I’m thinking maybe I’m as guilty as the Israelites…I turn from God, my source for peace, love, joy and freedom. Instead I try to hold all my “stuff” within – thinking I can handle it, I can manage, when I’m really nothing more than a dripping jar. I carry my burdens around inside myself when I could be handing it to God and asking Him to wash it all with living water.

Teaching Me to Walk

2007-11-26T19:05:00.000-08:00

I thought these were beautiful verses from Hosea:

Hosea 11:3-4
It was I who taught Ephraim to walk,

taking them by the arms;

but they did not realize

it was I who healed them.
I led them with cords of human kindness,

with ties of love;

I lifted the yoke from their neck

and bent down to feed them.

Oh, God, how well I know that it was You who taught me to walk,
and lead me still through the crooked labyrinthine ways of my heart.
You, who have always been, and always will be -
have always been with me.

Soul-Healer, Heart-Lover, You bind my wounds and wipe my tears.
Forgive me that I did not always hear You, the very beat of my heart,
that I did not always see You, the very light of my life,
the Savior of my soul.

With silken cords and velvet bands, You have tenderly drawn me.
With kindness and love, mercy and grace, You have held me tightly in Your hand.
Steering, directing, watching, waiting, never leaving, nor forsaking,
tethering me loosely and gently.

Burdens lifted - no bondage remaining, no oppression lurking, no darkness invading.
Help me remember the loathsome load is gone – no need to stoop, to struggle, to limp along.
Praise You! Praise You, Father-God! Lover, Healer, Captain of my life!
Forever feed me, O Bread of Heaven!

Clootie Wells

2007-11-25T15:03:00.000-08:00

c

cloot – n; one division of a cloven foot

I stumbled across the word cloot the other day on a list of unusual words. I’ve never heard of it before, but it means one division of a cloven foot. Cloot lead me to several more interesting words: Clootie and Old Cloots are Scottish names for the Devil; clootie (again from the Scots) means a strip of cloth or rag; clootie wells are places of pilgrimage in Celtic areas where strips of a cloth or rag have been left at a well or spring as part of a healing ritual; and finally, the yummy clootie dumpling, a fruit laden Scottish pastry, gets its name from the cloth (or cloot) in which it is steamed.

I understand the connection between a cloot (relating to a cloven hoof) and Clootie (the Devil) since the old snake is often portrayed as a creature having a cloven foot. Some think this picture of Satan came about during medieval times when Christian depictions of the Devil merged with that of Pan, the pagan goat-footed god. Often representing a type of uncleanness, a goat would fittingly portray the prince of unclean spirits.

But, the connection with strips of cloths or rags is a little harder to understand. Maybe because a cloot is a division of a cloven foot and the cloot as in a rag is a division or strip of a whole piece of cloth? Perhaps.

Clootie wells are intriguing. They were a place, usually with a spring or well, to which people would come to wash their physical ailments away. Little carvings of the afflicted body parts would be thrown in as an offering to the spirit of the well. I can just see little arms and legs being flung down into the moist darkness and villagers peering over the sides, hoping against hope that their suffering would soon come to an end. At some point, people just started bringing their piece of cloth (cloot) to the well, dipped it in the water, and used it to wash their body. Then they hung up the cloth on a nearby tree or bush. When the cloot became dry, the hope was, their ailment would be healed. Clootie wells still exist in some places of Ireland and Scotland today!

So – clootie wells made me start thinking about healing and where (or with whom) do I put my faith and trust when I need curing. God has graciously given me good health these past 39 years. Thankfully, I’ve had no serious sicknesses to speak of other than the typical maladies that come from having three babies and living life. However, what I have needed often is emotional healing. I have had some arrows stuck deep and carried since girlhood, that when pulled out have bled unmercifully. I’ve had some self-inflicted wounds that have been quite a mess to clean up not to mention long to heal. And I still get some glancing blows every now and then that smart like the dickens and leave nasty bruises. I’m sure your experience is similar.

I’m afraid I’m guilty of trying to heal myself with worldly remedies and superstitious rituals just as those visitors of the clootie wells did. I have dipped my rags in the wells of denial, isolation, and self-reliance - often and deep. Denial that I even have any arrows sticking out of me; Isolation to try to hide the oozing sores from the sight of others; Self-reliance in the mistaken idea that I myself can fix everything that is wrong.

And like so many before me at the clootie wells, I have been disappointed when the spirit of the well (in this case me) didn’t provide relief from the pain. My only hope, my only comfort, my only release has come as I have started down the path of acknowledging that I have these arrows jutting out in the first place, that I actually need others to not only see my wounds, but to help me bind them up, and that I cannot heal myself. I need the Great Physician - not vague superstitions and vain rituals. Only in Him can the arrows be removed and the wounds healed. Scars are left, yes. But these days I see the scars more as evidence of battles won and victories claimed rather than failures or death sentences.

Jesus, send me deep into Your waters. Wash me, heal me. Help me to trust in Your ways of healing my wounds, not in that of man, not in that of myself. Amen.

John 9:1-7
As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"

"Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life. As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world."

Having said this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man's eyes. "Go," he told him, "wash in the Pool of Siloam" (this word means Sent). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.

Oh – one more thing - as far as the clootie dumpling, here’s a link with a recipe and directions for those brave enough to give it a try:

http://www.scottishrecipes.co.uk/clootiedumpling.htm

"Some talk that the devil hath a cloven foot; but whatever the devil's foot be, to be sure his sons have a cloven heart." Richard Alleine

Hope & Pray

2007-11-25T03:47:00.000-08:00

I Corinthians 13:13
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Hope, in the famous trio, is probably the toughest and the least attended to in the history of Christian thought. One reason is that maybe we have a livelier sense of faith and love than of hope because we know pretty well what the effects of faith and love are.

Faith expresses itself in trust and belief. Job’s refusal to curse God is a concrete expression of faith without limit. Faith is not easy, but we know what it looks like.

Love expresses itself in deeds. Sell all that you have and give to the poor; Do good to those who persecute you; Stop to help the person lying beside the road; Love one another so that everyone will know that you are my disciples; Christ emptied himself and took the form of a servant. Love is not easy, but we know how it expresses itself.

What about hope? What is its effect? How does it express itself? Many who despise Christianity say that hope appears to be a pie in the sky wish that there is more when we die so that the everyday world with its flawed human inhabitants and complicated problems dwindle to insignificance.

But hope is not blind or insensitive. Some headlines I found on the internet might give us some clue to the “effect” of hope:

'Hope and pray no one else gets hurt'
12:59 PM CST on Saturday, November 10, 2007

OPINIONJOURNAL FEDERATION

The Case for Bombing Iran

I hope and pray that President Bush will do it.

BY NORMAN PODHORETZ Wednesday, May 30, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

'I Hope And Pray There Is A Cure For This'
By Tracy Vedder KOMO News February 22, 2006

Saturday, September 29, 2007

State workers 'hope and pray'
Uncertainty grips Mich. employees: 'I can't afford to miss even one paycheck,' says one man.
George Hunter and Karen Bouffard / The Detroit News

Tuesday, January 17, 2006 - Page updated at 11:18 AM
Parents hope, pray after baby arrives too early and so tiny
By Sonia Krishnan
Seattle Times Eastside bureau

The expression of hope is prayer. We have faith and trust; we love and act; we hope and pray. Trust is not something added to faith, action is not something added to love, prayer is not something added to hope. Yet, each of these statements are not simply repeating themselves. In trusting, we see faith become flesh. Through acts of love, we see love become flesh. And in prayer, we see hope become flesh.

(Adapted from The Ironic Christian’s Companion by Patrick Henry.)

Possessed by Nothing

2007-11-23T21:32:00.000-08:00

Dear God,
If you give me a genie lamp like Aladdin I will give you anything you want except my money or my chess set.
Raphael

Taken from the book Children's Letters to God.

The need to possess is evident even in our children. How many of us can see it clearly in our kids? Another question, how many of us can see it clearly in ourselves? How many of us have prayed just as ridiculous of a prayer without even realizing it? Asking God for "things" even while holding back "our" most valuable things for ourselves. Whether our money or our marriages, it all belongs to God and we have to trust him. God made a world with many awesome gifts for his beloved creations (aka humans), but he never meant for these to reign in our hearts. He is to be the only shrine within our hearts. Sin and man's freewill have made His many gifts become our idols. Our possessive clinging to things often takes over our hearts and minds, becomes so palpable that it threatens our everyday lives and more importantly, our souls. Because it is in our nature to possess and desire "things" we often don't recognize it for the evil that it is, it seems innocent, but it is actually far from it. Many of us can say that we are content with what God has given us and shrug this possession lesson right off our shoulders, but beware...there's more.

A.W. Tozer uses the example of Abraham and Isaac to make his point on this. According to Tozer, Isaac represented everything sacred to his father's heart: the promises of God, the covenants, the hopes of the years and the long messianic dream. God had to remove Isaac from the temple of Abraham's heart so that God could reign unchallenged in this Godly man's heart. The love for his son had the potential to rule him. (Even something as wonderful and right as the love of our children can become skewed and get in line ahead of God-ugh) We all know this story and can feel Abraham's pain and then deep relief. At the end of the story Abraham possessed nothing...yes, he still had his son, was still a very wealthy man, still had family and friends, still had his spiritual gifts, but he realized they all belonged to God...not himself. He had everything but possessed nothing. There is the spiritual secret. There is the sweet theology of the heart which can be learned only in the school of renunciation...His real treasures were inward and eternal.

Tozer recommends turning everything over to God including our love of "things", spouse, children, friends, family...whatever is taking up more room than God. He even tells us that our gifts and talents are His and should never be considered in any sense our own, a source of pride and power. Ouch! It is easy to put good things ahead of God and not even realize it. We must recognize this as sin. Our possessions whether physical, spiritual , or emotional should never be our possessors.

"...no natural feelings are high or low, holy or unholy, in themselves. They are all holy when God's hand is on the rein. They all go bad when they set up on their own and make themselves into false gods." ...There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him. And the higher and mightier it is in the natural order, the more demoniac it will be if it rebels.
C.S. Lewis The Great Divorce

When we are possessed by nothing, only then can we be wholly possessed by God. What are you holding on to? What are you putting your faith in?

Praying for our renunciations.
~S~

Lydia Friends

2007-11-23T07:26:00.000-08:00

Only friendship can really save us from our own smallness. ~Joan Chittister~

Paul's first evangelistic contact in Macedonia was to a small group of women. (hmm, wonder if they were anything like our group...were they holding a religious study group? Wonder if this group was a group of business women holding a meeting, having lunch, or just enjoying one another's company?) Lydia who was "a seller of purple" was one of those women. She was an influential, probably wealthy business woman who scripture says was a worshiper of God. (Acts 16:14). Her heart was opened and she and her household were baptized and she housed Paul and Silas as they did their missionary work. From her home Paul led many to Christ and founded a church in Philippi. Her actions, her obedience to Christ opened the way for ministry in that region.

So what do I mean by Lydia friends? Well, I imagine Lydia as a strong, confident woman. Someone who followed her pursuits with a passion, who made any journey an adventure, crackling with energy as she influenced others to join in as another mission was accomplished. In Lydia, a lady could see what she herself wanted to become, could develop a sense of belonging, feel safe as discovered herself.

The Lydia dimension of friendship is the desire to draw from another the strength we need to go beyond where we would ever go alone. We search for a Lydia in our lives to give us the courage to walk on tightropes above raging seas of confusion below. We can risk the beckoning of the unknown with a Lydia friend beside us...a pillar who provides structure, support, and prayer.

One warning though, the role of Lydia is to lead us beyond ourselves; however, when we find ourselves walking only in the shadow of the Lydias in our lives rather than beside them, we have substituted dependence for friendship. It is easy to mistake one for the other, but the signs are clear. The real Lydias, when we find them, are not those who try to remake us in their image. Instead, they enable us to become the best of what we can, to develop who we are in ourselves. They see our ideas just as valuable, just as possible as their own. They provide the environment, the model that leads us to think on our own. In that kind of strength lies the glory of friendship.

At one moment in time you may be the Lydia to someone...or you may need a Lydia. We all minister to one another in different ways at different times. If you close yourself off to friends you may be holding yourself back from living up to your God given potential. Or you may be the one holding someone else back...

Father God, when I am the Lydia friend help me guide her as you would...lovingly, patiently, wisely. Prepare my heart and my mind, give me the strength to serve. There will be a time when I need a Lydia friend, I know you will send one...you already know who she is. Soften my heart to help me be open to her and the gifts she will bring to my life. Thank you for providing a Lydia in my life.

Think purple,
~S~

Pop-ups

2007-11-22T06:10:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving! Hope your day is not full of pop-ups, unless they are good ones. May you love and laugh loudly today. May your heart be truly thankful for the many blessings we have. May you hunger for God more than anything else in your life.

I asked God for strength, that I might achieve,

I was made weak, that I might learn humbly to obey;

I asked for health, that I might do greater things,

I was given infirmity, that I might do better things;

I asked for riches, that I might be happy,

I was given poverty, that I might be wise;

I asked for power, that I might have the praise of man,

I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God;

I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life,

I was given life, that I might enjoy things;

I got nothing that I asked for - but everything I had hoped for,

Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered,

I am among all men, most richly blessed.

Author Unknown

Blessings,
~S~

Static Love

2007-11-21T14:07:00.000-08:00

Happy Hump Day ladies! Tomorrow is the big day, the day when we feel like we are judged by the moistness of our turkeys.

I don't know about you, but it is tempting to take our stress out on the men in our lives. Possibly b/c as we run around like maniacs, they are asking "What's for dinner, aren't you cooking today?" as they complain that there are no good sports games on the day before Thanksgiving. Or, "there is no point in fussing about the house, my 52 family members won't care what it looks like" "Why are you being so sensitive? My mother, cousin, aunt, sister didn't mean any harm" ...At times like this it can be difficult to remember why we married them, how we could possibly love them...it can be difficult to keep from committing spousal abuse.

Here is something I hold onto when I'm ready to be abusive. This was written by Madeleine L' Engle in her Crosswicks Chronicles-Two Part Invention. This book was taken from her journal as she reflected on life with her husband from meeting him, dating him, marrying him, then years of marriage and raising a family with him. She wrote these words as she was watching her husband slip closer to death, facing life on her own for the first time in years.

Our love has been anything but perfect and anything but static. Inevitably there have been times when one of us has outrun the other and has had to wait patiently for the other to catch up . There have been times when we have misunderstood each other, demanded too much of each other, been insensitive to the other's needs. I do not believe there is any marriage where this does not happen. The growth of love is not a straight line, but a series of hills and valleys. I suspect that in every good marriage there are times when love seems to be over. Sometimes these desert lines are simply the way to the next oasis, which is far more lush and beautiful after the desert crossing than it could possibly have been without it.

Breath.

Love him anyway.

In a few days when you are being ridiculous and don't realize it, he may feel the same about you...don't you want him to love you anyway? Show mercy and grace.

Love him anyway.

Your love has been anything but static, but would you have it any other way? Stay in the process, stay in the marriage, work through it all. You have grown together, through good times and bad (his and yours) so save your anger energy and put it elsewhere... like on cooking your turkey and changing your linens.

Love him anyway.

The Spring Rain is calling,
~S~

Moon Shell

2007-11-20T02:15:00.000-08:00

Yesterday's email discussed giving it all to God and listening for His voice in the silence to navigate us through the wilderness. Today we discuss solitude and silence.

In her book Gift from the Sea, Anne Morrow Lindbergh uses the moon shell to remind her of the value of solitude. If you look at the surface of the moon shell, you can follow the spiral inward until it reaches it's most central point, the core. As women we often pour ourselves out without ever taking time to renew and refill. Our core is where our strength lies, where God resides. It is essential for us to have times of solitude to allow renewal to reach us deep within.

She says:
We live in a busy world and most of us have noise around us all day. Some of us fear solitude because of what we may have to deal with if the noise and busyness stops. Many of us have lost our inner music. Solitude actually helps our relationships, for it is not physical solitude that actually separates us from others, not physical isolation, but spiritual isolation." "When one is a stranger to oneself then one is estranged from others too." We are hungry but don't know what we are hungry for and so we fill the void with endless distractions. Certain springs are tapped only when we are alone.

We must find that inner stillness which Charles Morgan describes as the stilling of the soul within the activities of the mind and body so that it might be still as the axis of a revolving wheel is still. To be the still axis within the revolving wheel of relationships, obligations and activities. The problem is not just solitude, but more in how to still the soul in the midst of its activi
And according to Ken Gire on this idea: Stillness is what gives stability, and it is what keeps the wheels from falling off our lives. (Have your wheels fallen off?)

Mother Teresa: We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature -- trees, flowers, grass -- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence. We need silence to be able to touch souls.

Even Jesus Christ, the greatest man who ever walked the face of this earth needed times of silence, needed to seek his Father in the silence. He set this example for us:
After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone...Matthew 14:23

But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. Luke 5:16

If Jesus needed this, how much more do us mere mortals.

By the way, have you laughed today?

How, you ask, do I get 5 minutes when I am so busy? When the house is full of company? With a turkey to bake and pies to make...Well-- if all else fails lock yourself in the bathroom. If necessary spray some air freshener to scare others away. (Plan ahead by buying a can of Spring Rain when you get your fixins for your feast.) The good news is you don't have to go to a cold, stinky outhouse like our mothers and grandmothers did for silence, and there was no Spring Rain to help the stench. Take advantage of your warm cozy bathroom! Get that picture in your head, laugh, and then find your alone time...your happy spot.

Smiling in the silence of my bathroom, smelling the Spring Rain, and feeding my soul. :)

Be renewed,
S

Wilderness

2007-11-18T20:18:00.000-08:00

For the past year I have felt like I've been in a dark, untamed wilderness and it is only recently that I feel like I have emerged into a place filled with sunlight. It feels rather like I have been running blindly through thick fog, panting as I tripped over tangled roots and rocky terrain. It was only about a month or so ago that one day I realized I didn't need to run blindly...I just needed to stop, be still and listen for God to direct me unharmed through the dangers in front of me. He was there the whole time & I was too focused on what I believed I needed to do to escape.

As I prepare for another trip to the Philippines, I decided to go back and read my journal writings from the last trip...hindsight is 20/20. I can now see clearly when I entered that wilderness, and that God was trying to prepare me for the expercience. I wasn't aware enough at that time of how to allow God to navigate. I know there are times even as Christians that we may be in a wilderness, that the wilderness may be a necessary part of growth, but we must depend on God to navigate us through. That is key.

Here is what I wrote after running to the beach to hide upon my return form the Philippines:

In the book When the Heart Waits by Sue Monk Kidd, she views these times of crisis as opportunities for growth-times for God's divine image imprinted on our souls to be brought more into focus-for the seed of God deep within us to be cultivated. Further into the book she talks more about this process. Usually we stop too soon-we work and we labor with the crisis and think we've worked it through. What should come next though is a letting go of our letting go. I've been working at letting go but I think I need to let go to God. If I stop now growth will be stunted.

Then God gave me an example even, but I didn't take heed. He does speak through our children:

Erin taught me about letting go of letting go. She was riding her boogey board and when she caught a good wave she was excited-she knew it was time to ride instead of struggle-she knew her struggle was nearly over and that success was finally hers. While she was riding that giant wave, though, she still had to work- tight grip on the board, paying attention to hold on and not fall off, not yet totally done. As the wave came to its end near the shore Erin let go, jumped up, and ran right back out to start a new battle. No time to rest, to rest in God in between, for that final time of growth and polishing to occur. No time to renew in Christ before taking on more. I watched awhile and realized that every time she got up too early. There was always a small little, more gentle calm wave coming in just behind the tough wave and that if she would have just relaxed her grip a little , she could have stayed in the moment and ridden the little calm wave a little closer to the shore. In my mind I saw that as the letting go part of letting go. A time we can relax and rest and just simply wait, a time to allow God to have it all, a time to consciously let go of our letting go, a time to rest in God as He carries us gently closer to the shore...gives us a little more polish, renews us.

A year, yes a year later, God was still speaking and I finally listened. I found that I had written a quote that struck me form Ken Gire's Windows of the Soul (The Wilderness Chapter):

It is in being crippled that I learn to cling and in limping that I learn to lean, that victory comes not in how courageously I struggle but in how completely I surrender, and that this is how I am to grow, by being defeated, decisively by constantly greater things.

"I do not at all understand the mystery of grace-only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us." Anne Lamott

Romans 5:20-21...But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

As we start an extremely busy week, I pray that each one of us will make time, even 5 minutes to just sit in silence with God. To not be so blinded by busyness, working, traveling, shopping, cooking, entertaining....exhausting to even think of it all...to be able to relax on our boogey boards and allow a gentle wave to carry us through. God works in the silence, just seek him there.

Have a blissful week,
~S~

Rhyming Time

2007-11-18T03:53:00.000-08:00

“Mark Twain is credited with the observation that history doesn’t repeat itself but rhymes. As in poems, sometimes the rhymes are internal, sometimes they are adjoining lines (lines that my be short or long), and sometimes they are in different verses. Stretches of free verse may intrude for a while.” – Patrick Henry in The Ironic Christian’s Companion

I thought this was a beautiful idea…rhyming time…The Bible gives us the clear picture that time is not circular, repeating itself over and over again, as the Greeks believed, but linear, with a definite beginning and end. But, sometimes I feel like time is repeating itself in my life. I am (horrors!) becoming my mother…the BIG fear most of us probably share. I am looking more and more like her as I age, and I find myself saying some of the same things to my children she said to me (that I of course said I would never say.) One day shortly after I had Mary, I looked up and realized I’ve perfectly reproduced the family I came from….I have a brother, Lonnie, who is 12 years older than me (Sean), I have an older sister, Buriece, who is 6 years older than me (Ellen), and then there came me (Mary.) My children are duplicates of me and my siblings in birth order and age spacing! Weird! I think God did that so I would have more compassion for my mother and what she went through as she parented all of us without God, without a Godly husband, without a church body, and without sisters in the Lord.

So, this idea of time rhyming struck me as comforting…Time isn’t repeating itself in my life. I am not my mother. I am different because I have God, I have Jesus as my Savior, and I have the Holy Spirit living within me and breathing new life into my soul. Yes, my life is similar, I am similar, to my mother. I rhyme with her, but God is doing something new with me, even as at the same time there is nothing new under the sun. What about you? How does time “rhyme” for you?

Ecclesiastes 1:9
What has been will be again,

what has been done will be done again;

there is nothing new under the sun.

Isaiah 43:19
See, I am doing a new thing!

Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the desert

and streams in the wasteland.

Father, thank you that You are the God of time, that You are outside of it, seeing it all from beginning to end. Help us as we swim along in this river of time. Remind us that there is nothing new under the sun, that so many have come before us. But also remind us, that You are doing something new in our hearts, making a way in the desert and putting streams in the wasteland. Amen.

Even If He Does Not

2007-11-17T15:42:00.000-08:00

As we’ve been talking about ‘story’, I’ve been thinking about some of my favorite Bible stories. I read the story of Sadrach, Meshach and Abednego in Daniel today. I’m sure I’ve noticed it before, but not like today….The three told Nebuchadnezzar that their God was able to save them from the furnace and would, in fact, rescue them. But then they said, “Even if He doesn’t, we still won’t serve your gods.”

That’s what struck me…they said God could and would save them, but you know what? Even if God chooses not to save us, we still will not turn away from Him. We will serve God not because of what He will do for us, but simply because God is God.

That made me think about my life…I’ve been very blessed. My family and I are healthy, I have three beautiful children, a wonderful husband, great friends, a job I enjoy, we’re financially comfortable…all-in-all, things are pretty dog-gone good. Yes – I’ve had my storms, but mostly they’ve been the result of my poor decisions, sin, and faithlessness. I’ve never been persecuted or treated unfairly because of my faith. I’ve never experienced the illness or death of a close loved-one. I’ve never been through separation or divorce. My children (to date) have been easy to parent.

So, I wonder…if my life of a sudden turns into a fiery furnace, simmering with pain, loss, and fear, would I so quickly tell whoever or whatever has thrown me into it, that although I know my God could save me, even if He chooses to leave me in the fire, I will praise Him still? Would you? Are you?

Daniel 3:13-18
Furious with rage, Nebuchadnezzar summoned Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. So these men were brought before the king, and Nebuchadnezzar said to them, "Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the image of gold I have set up? Now when you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipes and all kinds of music, if you are ready to fall down and worship the image I made, very good. But if you do not worship it, you will be thrown immediately into a blazing furnace. Then what god will be able to rescue you from my hand?"

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up."

Living Between the Wasteland and Dreamland

2007-11-16T18:13:00.000-08:00

I had a free hour or so this afternoon while waiting to pick up Ellen from swim practice and did one of my favorite things….went to the library and just browsed and browsed. I checked out 12 books! (I know, I have a problem.) Anyway, I started reading one tonight called The Ironic Christian’s Companion: Finding the Marks of God’s Grace in the World by Patrick Henry. Here’s a quote that caught my attention in the first chapter:

“There are vast regions between the wasteland of Macbeth’s despair – ‘Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing’ – and the dream land of ‘Christian’ optimism, in which our problems will be solved if we will just turn everything over to Jesus. I have gazed into both those lands and have been tempted to pass over into them. The temptations are similar – despair can be as alluring as optimism, for both promise a kind of clarity – but grace has held me back in this world where, for better or worse, most of us live most of the time. Abraham, who left home to go he knew not where; Moses, who knew where he was going but did not get there; and Paul, who saw through a glass darkly and kept pressing toward the goal, give me courage.”

Sound familiar?

I have been tempted to live in both of those lands, too. More so in dark despair than illusory optimism, I think. I agree that both hold a promise of clarity that seems easier than this fuzziness, this world that is ‘sometimes wonderful, sometimes awful, usually a confusing mixture of both and we have no idea how to make heads or tails of it.’ (John Eldredge) We find ourselves in this weird concoction of good and evil, ugliness and beauty, joy and misery.

Thinking of Henry’s examples of Abraham, Moses, and Paul who give him courage, I reflect on women in the Bible who give me courage…Eve, who in her sin was disastrously deceived by Satan yet still was allowed to become the mother of all the living; Sarah, who laughed at her God, yet was greatly blessed in her old age by Him anyway; and Peter’s mother-in-law, who after Jesus took her by the hand and healed her, immediately rose from her bed to serve her Savior.

I praise God that though we may sin grievously against Him, He still uses us to fulfill His purposes.

Genesis 3:20
Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.

I praise God that though we may scoff at His promises, He blesses us anyway.

Genesis 18:10b-12
Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, which was behind him. Abraham and Sarah were already old and well advanced in years, and Sarah was past the age of childbearing. So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, "After I am worn out and my master is old, will I now have this pleasure?"

Genesis 21:1-2
Now the LORD was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did for Sarah what he had promised. Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him.

I praise God that though we may be sick, He will heal us so we may rise up and serve our Savior.

Genesis 1:30-31
Simon's mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told Jesus about her. So he went to her, took her hand and helped her up. The fever left her and she began to wait on them.

Father-God, use us despite our sins, bless us even though we are scoffers, and heal us that we make serve You. Amen.

Unforgiveable

2007-11-14T17:57:00.000-08:00

Why do we call impossible what God calls possible?
Why do we call unforgivable what God has forgiven?
Why do we compromise with what God calls sin?
How we need to know God’s heart, and reach out in His love and wisdom to others.

It’s easy to love the people who are standing hard and fast,
pressing on to meet that higher calling.
But the ones who might be struggling, we tend to judge too harshly
and refuse to try and catch them when they’re falling.
We put people into boxes and we draw our hard conclusions
and when they do the things we know they should not do
we sometimes write them off as hopeless and we throw them to the dogs.
Our compassion and forgiveness sometimes seems in short supply…
- Chuck Girand

Strengthen the feeble hands,
steady the knees that give way;
say to those with fearful hearts,
“Be strong, do not fear;
your God will come,
he will come with vengeance;
with divine retribution
he will come to save you.”
Then will the eyes of the blind be opened
and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
- Isaiah 35:3-5

Humility

2007-11-13T16:56:00.001-08:00

“Do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man he will be what most people call ‘humble’ nowadays: he will not be a sort of greasy, smarmy person, who is always telling you that, of course, he is nobody. Probably all you will think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him. If you do dislike him it will be because you feel a little envious of anyone who seems to enjoy life so easily. He will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all.

If anyone would like to acquire humility, I can, I think, tell him the first step. The first step is to realize that one is proud. And a biggish step, too. At least, nothing whatever can be done before it. If you think you are not conceited, it means you are very conceited indeed.” – C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity.

“If we were really humble, we would know to what extent we are liars.” – Thomas Merton

“But our humility consists in being proud and knowing all about it, and being crushed by the unbearable weight of it, and to be able to do so little about it.” – Thomas Merton

“For true humility is, in a way, a very real despair: despair of myself, in order that I may hope entirely in You.” – Thomas Merton

“Where there is sympathy and love and humility, how can anger continue to develop?” – Dorotheus
“All of you, clothe yourself with humility toward one another because,
God opposes the proud
But gives grace to the humble.
Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.”
- St. Peter (1 Peter 5:5b-7)

Questions:
Have you taken the first step toward humility and realized you are proud?
Do you understand the extent to which you are a liar?
Are you crushed by the unbearable weight of your pride?
Do you despair of yourself and hope entirely in Jesus?
Are you angry?
Have you humbled yourself under God’s mighty hand?