Category — faith

I have two beautiful daughters.  They are still young, and thankfully they are still enjoying the protection and shelter of our home.

However…

They are getting to the age where they are wanting to go to friends houses, being invited to sleep-overs and are beginning to test the limits of their boundaries and enjoying some tastes of independence.

These are good things – don’t get me wrong – but as a mom of two beautiful girls I have concerns.

• How can I protect them when I am not around?
• Have we taught them and guided them enough that they will stay within the boundries that we have set up?
• Will they remember the rules that we have set for them when they are not at home?
• Will they truly understand that they need to guard their eyes to protect their hearts?
• Will they come to me if they have questions?
• Will they come to me if they chose to break a rule and need help?
• Will they come to me of someone else breaks those rules for them?

These are a few of the concerns that I have as I send them out each day.  I have to trust God for these things (among so very many others!) and know that He is in control.

However, some girls were not so lucky.  Some were not protected and taught to guard their eyes to protect their hearts.  Some chose to disregard those lessons.  Some chose to just take a peek – after all, what harm can just a peek do?

Just a peek.

Just a peek can start us down a path that is tangled and hard to find your way out of.  If you or someone you know has started down this tangled and crooked path I have good news for you.

You are not alone.

And I have better news…

Help is available

A friend of mine has been there.  She has lived on that tangled and crooked road, and she has found the path that well bring you back off of it.  The best part?  She is sharing that with the world.

Yes, if you or someone you know has ever struggled or is currently struggling with porn, Crystal and DirtyGirlMinistries.com is here to help.

If you need help, it is there.

This day has foerever been changed for American’s… at least we can hope that it will be forever remembered.

Where were you 8 years ago?

Most of the world knew what was going on before I did.  You see, I was a stay-at-home mom of an almost 1 year old and we didn’t have cable.  Live streaming on the web wasn’t quite there yet, and all I had was a cell phone.

That phone rang.

On the other end of the line was my mom in Colorado, calling to let me know that an airplane had just struck a tower of the world trade center.  All of the sudden she stopped talking – then in a ruch she said “Oh my Goodness!  Another plane JUST HIT THE SECOND TOWER!!!!  I can’t believe this is happening?  What is going on?”

Many people lost their lives that day.  Many more people lost loved ones.  Many were afraid that they had lost someone, and the stories that came out over the next weeks and months of people who were running late to work or had to stay home with sick children came out.  Women whose husbands had given their lives to save others became heroes overnight.  Books were written, and America was united… for a while.

But now we look back through a filter of 8 years.

Can it truly have happened?  Was it real?

I had a cousin working at a hospital in NYC.  A cousin who had arrived home from a night shift and was in the shower when it happened.  A cousin who turned around and went back to work that morning to help however she could.  She sent out an email to her family letting us know that she was OK, and that she was heading back.

I have a friend who has made a ministry around caring for those firefighters who were impacted.  She takes teams of people to NYC a few times a year to minister to the firehouses.  They take coffee and cocoa and Jesus to these men and women.  They pray for them DAILY.  They listen to the stories.  The bring back the stories to Washongton State and share them with others who can pray more specifically.

We should all be praying for those who lost someone.  It’s the least we can do.

I went to NYC a couple of years ago.  Manhatten.  As we were walking, there was suddenly an empty space ahead in the sky – no buildings were there.  Yes, it sounds odd, but I was wondering why there was so much sky there.

Then I turned the corner.

and I remembered.

Twisted metal in a deep hole, a deep pile of rubble.  A huge expanse of sky above it with no tall buildings to block it.  A fire station directly across the street with a memorial set up to those that responded first… and lost their lives in the attempt to save others.

There is a memorial set up across the street with “found objects” a womans black pump, a spoon from the restaurant at the top, notes and photos of those who were and are missing.  Video from 9/11/01.  Teddy bears.

That is the hardest for me as a mom.  Knowing that children lost their lives, that children lost their parents.  Their grandparents, aunts and uncles.  Babies were orphaned overnight.  I look at my almost-9-eao-old daughter and know that it could just as easily have happened to her.  She could have lost Mommy or Daddy to an act of terror.  We could have lost her.

And it still could happen to any of us.

BUT

That is a powerful word, but I know another one that when added to it is so much more…

But GOD

That is the most powerful word in any language… GOD

GOD is the reason that we don’t need to live in fear.

GOD is the reason that we can have hope – hope for today and tomorrow.  Hope for our children and their children.

GOD is the one that brings peace to our hearts and minds and lives.

Yes, we should remember what happened 8 years ago.  Yes, we should keep those who were directly affected in our prayers.  Yes, we should be united as a country.  Yes, we need to teach our children about the ugly reality that this world is…

But GOD needs to be shared and taught even more so.  We need to live our lives in such a way that Jesus shines through us, that Jesus can use us to make an impact on the world around us.  That Jesus can impact the lives of our children and their children.  That Jesus can bring unity and love and kindness and justice and mercy and forgiveness and acceptance and peace and hope.

For without Him, there is no hope.

Lest I forget, lest we all forget.  Lives were sacrificed 8 years ago.  Lives were stolen away.  But there is a life that was freely given that can save us all, and those of us who know Him need to share Him with those who are hurting and fearful.  Those who are in need and those who have too much.  Those that need a Comforter and a Friend.

Remember those who were affected, and choose to be an effect on our world.

Recent events have brought a thought to my mind…

…Namely the murder of a doctor while he was attending church…

…and a simple verse in the Bible.

“By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:35

It seems that The Church has gotten a little off of the narrow path as of late (and by late I mean over the past 1500 years or so).  We are supposed to love one another.  We are supposed to love those whom God has created – even if we don’t like the sin that they are committing.

There is another verse that these events brought to mind…

“Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written,
“VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY,” says the Lord.”  Romans 12:19

… which is at the end of a passage on how we are to serve one another.  I highly recommend reading through Romans 12 if you have the time – if only for the reminder of how we are to treat one another within the body of Christ.

Then, of course, there is that short little verse in Exodus 20:13 (and Deuternonomy 5:17) which has just 4 little words:

Thou Shalt Not Kill.

Um… yeah.

So far I’ve been staying pretty high-level, common knowledge with these references, and yet so much of the Church at large seems to forget that they exist!  Why is God so often used as an excuse to show cruelty?  Just a few examples:

• The Crusades (it was really all about the wealth of the area… Europeans had never seen anything like Byzantium!)
• Hitler’s oppression of the Jews (and let’s face it, he’s not the only one!  Many “Christians” show heavy anti-symatism)
• the Religious Right using their bibles to bash anyone who gets in their way.
• The Pharisees & Sadducees who were the earthly force God used to hang Jesus on the cross… and who then persecuted His followers, forcing them to the ends of the known earth.

I said it was just a few examples… that list could go on and on and on.  We have all experienced it – someone using God or their faith as an excuse to put someone else down.  I daresay we have even done it once or twice ourselves.

But what does Jesus call us to?  Does he tell us to go out and sin against God in His name?  Does He send us out to steal, kill and destroy?  It seems to me that description was reserved for a different kind of roaring lion.

No, He called us to love.  To build relationships with those that we meet on a day to day basis, to share Jesus with them – and occasionally to use words.

Folks, our actions should show them Jesus!  We should be living our lives in such a way that people see HIM when they look at us.  We are called to be salt and light to a lost and dying world – something that is hard to do when our lives are no different than theirs, and is especially hard when we are behaving with less self control or morality.

Here’s a crazy thought…

What if we took the energy that we normally would use to cut down others or vent our frustrations and instead spent it on reaching out in love to a lost and dying world?

What if we focused our attention on taking a meal to the neighbor who lost a loved one or who recently had a child or lost their job?

What if we offered to watch the kids down the street for an afternoon or evening so their mom could have some down time or go out on a date with her husband?

What if we baked a double or triple batch of cookies and took the time to walk around the neighborhood and share the extras with those who live around us?

What if the next time we wanted to say something negative or derogatory about someone we reigned in our tongue and prayed for them instead?

What if instead of watching 3 hours of TV with your kids tonight, you played a game with them?  Or spent 10 minutes each night memorizing a scripture verse as a family?

What if we allowed the love that is God so fill our lives that it overflowed into everything that we did?

Somehow I think that if The Church would focus on Love, we could change the world.

They will know us by our love and be changed, or they will see us through our hate and turn away.

01-we-are-one-in-the-spirit-_-by-our-love

One last reminder… revival starts in the heart – yours and mine.

I think I need to go bake some cookies.

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Once again, Tam is inspiring a blog post.  Stop it!  Ha!  Just kidding.  I hope you are enjoying the slightly more prolific me that has taken over this week (who am I kidding… today!)

First – go read this post – then come back here and see where it got me.

Don’t worry, I’ll wait.

Take your time.

This window will stay open for you, patiently waiting for your return.

You back?  Good.  Let’s dig in.

The big question?

WHAT IS WORSHIP?

Yep.  That is the question I have for all of us.  What does the word make you think of?  How does it affect (or effect) your life?

Why do I ask this?  Because it needs to affect your life.  I needs to be the cause of the effect of God on your life.  It needs to be in the air that you breathe, the food that you eat.  In the actions and reactions of your day.

Why?

Because the painful truth is that we all worship something every second of every minute of every day.  Yep.  We are creatures that were created to worship (notice I didn’t say “for worship” – we don’t deserve to be worshiped!)

What are you worshiping today?

• yourself
• your spouse
• your kids
• your job
• your car
• your computer/online life
• your wii/nintendo/x-box
• etc
• etc
• etc

The list of the things that we worship goes on and on and on and on.  Truth is, we have idols, and lots of them.  Just because they aren’t carved out of wood or stone and made to look like a little person or animal doesn’t make them any less of an idol.  The idols we worship in place of God are the things to which we devote our time, energy and money.

And trust me when I tell you that I’m talking to myself as much as anyone else!  My flesh considers itself a demi-god.  Worthy of worship.  As having a worth-ship, a high value.  Others should sacrifice for me, right?  For my wants and needs and desires!

NOT!

My kids… yep, they are little gods in their eyes too.  Humanity is so full of itself!  Look at any 2 year old, and you will see a creature that seeks to fulfill it’s own desires at (almost) every turn.  As a mom, I can easily make them into idols too… catering to their wishes and sacrificing to them.  Yes, I should sacrifice for them, but not to them.

So, back to our question.  What is worship?

It is the act of sacrificing time, money, energy and desire for something that we have deemed valuable enough to be worth it.  That’s one way of putting it.  There are others too, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on it.

So, are you worshiping the right thing?  The right Being?

Are you devoting your time, money, energy and desire to God, or creator?  Or are you sacrificing those things that belong to Him in preference of something else?

Is He worthy of your life?  After all, He gave His for you.

I was blog visiting this morning, and after commenting on David’s blog, I thought I’d share the comments here for you as well.

His question was on love, and what it is to you.  Here is my (slightly added to) reply…

Love… wow.

Friendship has taught me that we need others in our lives. They challenge us, they help us experience the world around us in new and different ways. A true friend is there beside you to help you through the good time and the bad, and something that should be cherished. Friendship has taught me how to bear one another’s burdens. To lift up those around me in prayer, to share the joys and pains, to laugh and to cry for things that aren’t “mine” and truly experience them through another.  It has taught me about brotherly love, and has helped me to realize that God made us for community.  We need each other, just as we need that friend that is closer than a brother.

Marriage taught me how to love deeply – for better or worse, in good times and bad. It begins with a desire for that person to be your everything (at times) and grows into the realization that no one but God can (or should) be your everything. But that other person IS your other half in many ways. They are there beside you, helping you, nurturing you, growing with you. Love will continue to grow and deepen – despite hurts, despite pain, love can and will endure. It will heal. And it will fill you up and bring such joy in the midst of the trials of life. Marriage has taught me about true, deep commitment. And reminds me not to take Eric (or God) for granted. It has taught me about how Jesus loves the church, the Bride of Christ.

Parenthood has taught me more about God’s love than anything else in my life. To have a child is to send your heart out walking around in the world each day. Their simply being alive makes you love them. When they show love in return, it is a huge blessing. When they attempt to withdraw that love it is painful, but you still love them, and hope that by continuing to love them, they will come around again. Witnessing their achievements fills you up inside, seeing their hurts breaks your heart. Parenthood had taught me about how God loves us, and reminds me that even when I choose to ignore Him, He still loves me and is patiently waiting for me to come back home. He is always waiting for us, always loving us.   He will never leave us or forsake us.  NEVER.

This is love, that you would lay down your life for a friend… or an enemy. That is the love of God, that He would sacrifice His only Son so that EVERYONE could be saved. He died not only for those of us who call Him Lord, but for those that despise and curse Him, that they could one day come to love Him.

THAT is amazing love.

What about you?  What does Love mean to you?

I know, I’m late.  But I have a good excuse!  We drove south to a friends house and spent the afternoon at the park playing Catan.  Quite fun, even if we were freezing in the 75 degree weather… yes, I was cold and it was 75F outside.  Disclaimer: we were sitting in a very shady grove surrounded by big trees with a breeze blowing and we were all in tanks tops and shorts.  Brrr!  But I won, by 2 points if I recall.

So, back to the service… I get so easily distracted!

The songs:

• Sing, Sing, Sing [G]
• Hosanna (Praise Is Rising) [F]
• O Worship The King [F]
• kids message
• Here I Am to Worship [E]
• announcements
• message “Why Not Take All Of Me”
• Made To Worship [F]
• Take My Life [D]
• communion message
• Lead Me To The Cross [E]
• taking the Lord’s Supper
• Reign In Us [F]

Yep, that’s a LOT of songs!  The message was on worship, and was taken from the passage in 2 Samuel 6 where King David attempts to bring the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem (resulting in a death) – and then gets it right and is able to bring it.  We moved a couple of songs to the end of the message so that people could get some “practical application” before they left, and my hope is that they left with the knowledge that worship is so much more than a few songs sung on a Sunday morning!  I have to admit that I was wishing Pastor Chris had picked a different title – I kept having the old jazz chart “All Of Me” going through my head, and it was annoying.  (looooong story having to do with my college jazz band and our honeymoon)

Sing Sing Sing was a new one today, and it went over really well… well, other than me starting the repeat of verse 1 with the words of verse 2… oops!  Fortunately I caught it on about the 3rd word, so I saved it pretty quickly.  I think I like it, and I think that a decent enough group of people knew it that it will catch on pretty quickly.  That and the fact that it repeats the same thing A LOT.  Repetition is a good thing when you are trying to learn something!

I read Luke 19:37-40 at this point to remind all of us why we worship God – first, we worship Him because He is worthy and deserving of our praise and adoration, and second because if we don’t do it the earth will have to!  It’s a good reminder.

That flowed wonderfully into Hosanna (Praise Is Rising) which is a fav of our church.  We followed that with O Worship The King (which I kept blanking out on the words for… oy!) and then had the kids come up early for their message.

For the kids song we sang Here I Am to Worship, and it was cool to see even the little ones getting into singing and clapping and doing the hand motions for it.  I still struggle with the bridge, because I think we will see the true cost of our sin one day… but other than that I love the song.

The message should be live tomorrow if you’re interested (and it was a pretty good one).  You can check it out here.

The band came back up and we led Made To Worship (a new one for me) and Take My Life (as sung by Chris Tomlin & Christy Nockles).  It was pretty powerful.  Take My Life is a song that can go on and on and on if you have the time for it… which I was really wishing we had this morning!

Jim shared a story that made communion a little easier for the kids to understand (since they were back in with us this morning) The story was about 2 boys that were friends, and one of them got sick and died.  He asked his friends to continue to celebrate his birthday even after he was gone, and to look forward to the day that they would all be together again.  I saw a few people wiping teary eyes by the end of it (I’ll even admit that it moved me, cold heart that I have

We led Lead Me To The Cross while the elements were passed out (which I bumped to E this week – SO much easier to sing!) and then Jim prayed over the bread and juice and took it together.

Since it was already 11:33, we just did the 2nd bridge and chorus of Reign In Us (you know, the part that they chop off when it’s played on the radio… grrr) and sent everyone out with that.

It was a good day.

People were entering in – lifting their hands, focusing on God rather than each other, and lifting their voices to God.  It was another of those days that I find it harder to “lead” because I just want to worship.  I’m still trying to find that balance… and I suspect that it will take a long time to get there!  I try to remember to make eye contact with those that seem to like that… but I’d much rather be in the background just singing to God than in the front.

Some thoughts on worship, since we are on the topic.

We serve a holy God… a God that deserves everything that we are!  He created us to worship Him, and whether we choose Him as our object of worship or not, we will worship something.  It is what we were created to do.  Whatever we give our time, energy and money to is what we worship… there is a saying that you can tell what someone worships by looking at their bank account.  You can also tell by watching how they live out their lives.

I know that I have been guilty lately of letting other things take that place in my life, and I haven’t been living out my life as an act of worship every day.  Just take a look at my living room to see the lack of excellence there!  Actually, don’t.  It’s embarrassing.

At our home group this week we were asked the following question:  What is an idol in your life?  Even though Eric laughed at the truth in it, I had to admit that the internet can at times become an idol rather than a tool.  There are days that begin and end with me sitting here with the laptop open and running, facebook or twitter going strong.  The internet is NOT supposed to be the beginning and the end in my life, God is!  He is the alpha and omega, but I have allowed something else to take that position from time to time.  That realization came on Friday as I was leaving a meeting with Pastor Chris.  Oy!  How easy it is to allow other things take too much of our precious time!

So, I will be working on that.

As much as I will miss constant updates of some new-found friends and acquaintances I have found on twitter and facebook, I will not be allowing myself to spend quite as much time there.  I need to nip this in the bud (so to speak) before it completely takes over my life!  Oh, and I really need to get the house picked up.  No, really.  I have family coming for a visit next month, and I’m sure they would appreciate sleeping on a futon that isn’t piled high with junk and having a shower that’s clean and shiny to use.  And a bathroom that isn’t full of piled up laundry.  And we need clothes to wear.

So, that is my confession for the week, as well as my prayer request – that I will be able to control the urge to be constantly online, to be constantly checking for status updates and new tweets, and to actually get work done!  I also pray that I will let God be the beginning and ending of my day… that I will let Him guide me from the moment I open my eyes and throughout my day to whatever He has for me.

And now I have a question for you…

How do you define worship?

I’m looking forward to reading the answers…

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Wow… that was a long one!  If you made it this far, congrats!  And thanks for reading…

Did I mention that we had Vietnamese Spring rolls for lunch?  Or were they Summer rolls… not sure.  They were the hard-rice-stuff-dipped-in-water wrapped ones – very fresh, very yummy.  That’s the treat for anyone that made it all the way through!

As always, part of Fred’s Sunday Setlist blog carnival!

1 Who has believed our report? And to whom is the arm of Jehovah revealed?
2 For He comes up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground; He has no form nor majesty that we should see Him, nor an appearance that we should desire Him.
3 He is despised and rejected of men; a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as it were a hiding of faces from Him, He being despised, and we esteemed Him not.
4 Surely He has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
5 But He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was on Him; and with His stripes we ourselves are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, each one to his own way; and Jehovah has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed, and He was afflicted; yet He opened not His mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter; and as a sheep before its shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth.
8 He was taken from prison and from judgment; and who shall declare His generation? For He was cut off out of the land of the living; for the transgression of My people He was stricken.
9 And He put His grave with the wicked, and with a rich one in His death; although He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth.
10 Yet it pleased Jehovah to crush Him; to grieve Him; that He should put forth His soul as a guilt-offering. He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the will of Jehovah shall prosper in His hand.
11 He shall see the fruit of the travail of His soul. He shall be fully satisfied. By His knowledge shall My righteous Servant justify for many; and He shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will divide to Him with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong; because He has poured out His soul to death; and He was counted among the transgressors; and He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for transgressors.

Isaiah 53

This was prophesied around 700 years before a man from Nazareth was brutally totured and killed in Jerusalem.

It seems very strange that we celebrate His death in such a way – even that we call today Good Friday!  How can such violence be celebrated?  It is celebrated because of what His sacrifice brought about.  It is celebrated because God chose to humble Himself and become a frail human – to be bound by our constraints – and to live out a human life.  He willingly allowed humanity to do their worst – and His death was some of the worst we could give 0ut – and He accepted the pain and agony that we put Him through.  He took every sin that had ever and would ever be committed upon His body and His Spirit and died in our place… in my place and in your place.

We call this day “Good” because Jesus overcame death, hell and the grave.  Because Jesus took our punishment – death and seperation from God the Father – in our place and made a way for us to spend eternity with Him.

Happy Good Friday.

Easter is one of those holidays that seems to have 2 separate celebrations… the celebration of the cross and the celebration of the bunny.  We are choosing to celebrate the cross!

The theme this week for Word Filled Wednesday is Because He Rose, and I chose a passage from John.  I hope you enjoy it.

¹⁵“Woman,” he said, “why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”
Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

¹⁶Jesus said to her, “Mary.”
She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher).

¹⁷Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ”

¹⁸Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.

John 20:15-18