Yep, I admit it.  I’ve apparently gone awol.  Missing In Action.

Yeah – sorry about that.

It’s been a kinda busy month or so around these parts… ya know with taking 3- classes, having sick kids, Easter, family in town – twice, and me being stupid & throwing my back out (tends to make sitting nearly impossible!)

BUT – I think I’m back!  Yay!

Of course, along with the list above, there has been the spiritual aspect as well.  Personally I’ve been arguing with God (yes, again) and – as usual – He’s winning.  Don’t you just hate that?  He ALWAYS wins!  (thank goodness!)

I’ve finally determined that my personal lesson for 2010 (at least the first half) is just how much of a wimp I really am… and I mean in just about every way.  I can’t do this thing called life on my own, or in my own strength.  DUH!  I have to do this thing called life in HIS strength.

Living life in His strength just isn’t the easiest thing in the world to do because that requires you to turn over control.  Something that within our humanity we tend to find just a little bit difficult.  Sure, we say that we will lay our troubles at His feet, that He is in control… but as soon as we start to feel like we aren’t in control we try to take it all back again.

You see, it’s the leaving it there that’s the hard part.  Sure, we will turn it over to God when it starts to get hard.  When we start to feel overwhelmed.  But as soon as those feelings pass we start to justify why we really should take control again.  After all, we aren’t feeling overwhelmed anymore, so we can handle it… right?

WRONG!

Our lives are so far beyond our control, so far beyond what we can handle in our humanity that it’s nearly insane to even try.  We have a threat of losing our job – quick!  Send up a prayer.  We get bad news from the Dr. and quick!  Send up another prayer.  We have tried to put God in a little brass lamp that we can rub whenever we think we need something.  God is not a genie in a bottle.  God is not our personal “get me out of this jam quick” savior.  He is the God of the universe!

And once we get a glimpse of how great He really is, well, it should change us.

Jesus calls us to live out a life in submission to Him.  He calls us to take up our cross and follow Him – not to say a few words and expect Him to follow us around like a pet dog!  That’s the wrong kind of unconditional love.  In that scenario, well, we would be the dog.  We should be the one looking at our Master with adoring eyes and willing to do whatever He asks us to do – NOT the other way around!

Yes, Jesus Christ is our Savior.  But He is not going to save us from the trials of life.  He is going to save us from our sin.  The bible never promised that choosing to follow Jesus would be easy – in fact, it promises exactly the opposite!  To take up our cross and follow Jesus is to choose a life of persecution.  Is to choose a life of discomfort, of possible loneliness.  To choose to give up everything and follow His leading, no matter the cost.

I recently began reading the book “Radical – Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream” by David Platt, and I must say that he brings out some pretty hard truths in just the first chapter!  so far the line that got me the most was this:

And the danger now is that when we gather in our church buildings to sing and lift up our hands in worship, we may not actually be worshiping the Jesus of the Bible. Instead we may be worshiping ourselves.

As Platt brings out in his book, we have begun to change who Jesus is to us.  We don’t want to believe that He would actually call us to walk away from our job or sell something that we like to help someone else – or even to choose not to buy something we want and give that money to missions.  We don’t want to think that he might actually ask us to leave our family of birth and risk our lives to tell people about Him!  No, that’s not what Jesus would ask us to do!

Um… folks, re-read the gospels and you will see… that is exactly what He asked His disciples to do.  To walk away from their livelihoods, their families and everything they knew, and follow Him wherever He would lead to – even unto death.

Wow…

And to think, I struggle with setting aside time each day to work on the bible study that I’m leading!  Here I am, an American Christian living in a 1500 sq. ft. house with 2 cars in the driveway and junk that I really need to figure out how to get rid of.  HEre I am with plenty of food in the fridge and pantry that my family can have something to eat whenever they feel a twinge of hunger.  I have fresh, clean water piped into my warm, dry house – so much that I don’t think twice about using it to take a longer-than-normal shower occasionally, and re-wash that load of clothes that got left in the washer a bit too long.

We are so full of ourselves!

We are so comfortable!  Proclaiming that we believe in Jesus Christ doesn’t bring any stronger persecution to us than perhaps some laughter around the water cooler.  We have good jobs, and so far no one can fire us for professing to be a Christian.  Our country is slowly losing it’s Judeo-Christian morals and values, but we are too afraid to rock the boat to say anything about it.

People in Asia are being killed because they profess faith in Jesus Christ.

They are being thrown in jail.  They are being tortured.

and they are glad to suffer for the sake of Christ.

I’m preaching to me here… I can’t think of any time that I truly suffered because of my belief in Jesus Christ.  Being teased at school doesn’t quite make that cut – especially when you grew up in a fairly “Christian” part of the country.  I do find myself wondering if I would have the strength to suffer for His sake.

I know that on my own, I would fail.  On my own, I couldn’t do it.

But I’m slowly learning that I’m not called to do anything on my own.

I am called to live out the life that He places before me… and to live it by and in His strength.

After all, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And for those interested in “Radical” – you can download and read the first chapter here.  And while supplies last you can get a free copy of the companion book “The Radical Question” by going to WaterBrookMultnomah.com/RadicalQuestion

And no, I haven’t received a free copy of the book – I followed the same steps I just told you about and downloaded the first chapter… I’m still processing what I’ve already read, and I’m only halfway through chapter one.  I am very much looking forward to reading the rest of the book… and a little frightened!  I know that God is calling me to go deeper with Him… but being the comfortable American that I am, that is a scary thing.

But is it worth it?

Absolutely.

I’m taking a class right now, and one of the required texts for reading is “Ancient-Future Time” by Robert E. Webber.

As I was reading today, I came across a sentence that caused me to stop and ponder it for a while – and I wanted to share those thoughts.

Mr. Webber made the following statement:

When we turn away from something, we turn towards something new.

Of course he was applying it to our turning towards God through Jesus and turning away from sin, however this concept (unfortunately) works in the other direction as well.

When we turn away from God, we are turning towards sin.  Or, if you prefer, when we turn towards sin, we are quite seriously turning away from God.

In our lives when we choose to turn away from some part of our lives, there will be something there that is different – and not always better for us.  Alternatevely, when we turn towards something new, we are making a choice to turn away from something that is presently a part of our lives.

The ideal is, of course, to turn towards God and away from sin, to turn towards truth and away from a lie.  The unfortunate thing is that we can also choose to turn towards sin – effectively turning away from God.

So what do we do when this has happened in our lives?  The correct choice is to make a course correction when we realize that it has happened.  We must then repent and turn back to God – and away from the path that sin is leading us down.  A path that leads to destruction and death.

How do we know that we have turned away from God?

The bible says that the Holy Spirit will whisper to us when we turn to the right or to the left to help us stay on the correct path, however we can condition our spirit to ignore His promptings – and the more we ignore them, well, the less we hear them in the first place.

THIS IS DANGEROUS!

Once we have conditioned ourselves to ignore Him, just think of how much harder it is once we desire to hear His voice again!  We must take the time and put in the effort to re-cultivate our spiritual ears to listen to Him, and while we are cleaning out our ears we must make the concious choice to die to the flesh in regards to the temptations of that path of sin!

Fortunately we serve a God who is a God of Love… a God that offers grace and forgiveness to us no matter how far we have strayed from Him.  We don’t deserve His love, grace and forgiveness, and there is no way we could ever work our way back to Him on our own.  BUT… He so desires us that He created a way for us to “get back into His good graces” as it were.

We must cry out to Him in repentance and ask for His forgiveness.  Until we are broken by our sin and cry out to Him we will continue down that same side road over and over again.

The choice of turning away from the sin and towards God MUST be a willful decision.  We can’t just float along through life and try not to ripple the waters around us.  It’s either walk-by-faith… or sink.

If we don’t place our faith in Jesus we will sink.  If we turn away from Jesus and look to the world, we will sink.  If, however, we will keep our hearts focused on Jesus, we will be able to walk on the water towards Him.  He has promised to give us whatever we need to get through the storms that we find ourselves in – but He never promised to take us out of the storms.

There’s a great new song out by Carlos Whittaker called “Rain It Down” that describes what we should be doing.  Here are the lyrics:

There’s a storm coming in the distance
Some will run to it and some will resist it
Our eyes will turn to the sky
With desert hearts looking to the heavens
Desperate for Your holy fountain
Our eyes will turn to the sky

Rain down on us Father
Rain down on us Spirit
Rain down on us Jesus
Rain down on us

There’s nothing like Your healing water
Pour it out on Your sons and daughters
Our eyes are lifted high
We are here and we are waiting
Flood our hearts ’til they’re overflowing
Our hands are lifted high

Come Lord we’re thirsty now
Come Lord and rain it down
Come Lord we’re thirsty now
Come Lord and rain it down

When we find ourselves in the midst of a storm we need to embrace it.  We need to cry out for God to rain down His healing waters upon our dry & thirsty souls – not cry out for it to be over.

We need to turn towards God.

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.

This looks to be a very cool week… we are studying God! Day one is about the One, True God.

Wow…

We read through King Jehoshaphat’s cry to God for Israel in 2 Chronicles 20, Job’s conversation with God in Job 40 & 42, and we touched on Elijah’s day taunting the prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18:36-39.

Do you realize what a powerful God we serve? He created the heavens and the earth… He can cause fire to rain down on an alter that has been doused with gallons and gallons of water and left to soak it in – and consume the water as well! He controls the animals, He controls the winds and the waves, He… well, He chose to give us free will. He could just as easily control every aspect of our lives by force just as He controls the elements, but instead He chose to let us have control of our lives.

Read through Job… The man was tortured by satan repeatedly – for no reason other than that he loved God! Yet, what was his reaction? He still chose to love God. Did he blame God? No. Did he choose to curse God – even when everyone around him told him to? No. He knew that God had a purpose for everything that was happening to him. Was he dissatisfied? Oh yeah. Did he question God? You’d better believe it! But… God didn’t come crashing down on him and curse him for questioning. God did come down. God did speak with him. God did reveal Himself to Job in a powerful way. And what did Job do then? He repented. He worshiped God.

Would you hold up that long? We all hope we would. I can’t imagine what he went through – to lose all of his children in one day. Who cares about the house & money – to lose your children! And not just one, but every child you had. All at once! And the only one left to comfort you was so torn up in their grief that they not only blamed you somehow, but told you to curse God and die! On top of that grief to have every worldly possession destroyed or taken away at the same time… He had nothing left BUT God. No, his “friends” don’t count. They were also blaming him – he must have done something to deserve this! Yes, God spoke the them too. He wasn’t as gracious to them…

Our culture tries very hard to make God into something that you can place into a little box and carry with you throughout your day. A little good luck charm to keep you safe, a little genie in a bottle to grant all your wishes. Do you really want to serve a God like that? Can you serve a God like that? That sounds to me like a pet that serves YOU!

No, Jehovah is not a genie in a bottle. Yahweh is not a good luck charm. Just because we call Him Emmanuel – God with us – does not mean that he can fit into our pocket to be our own personal protector. It’s ludicrous. We are talking about a being that was never created… a being that has always been. A being that IS always - He exists outside of time and space! We are talking about a being that was able to create this planet that perfectly sustains us. He created every plant that lives on it. He created every life form that thrives on land, in the water or in the air. He created US. He created every fiber of our beings, He knows the exact number of hairs that are growing out of our heads at every moment of our lives – and He knows the exact number that came out in the shower this morning! He knows how many skin cells we have still connected to our bodies, as well as how many are floating around in our homes disguised as dust.

You can’t put Someone that powerful in a box to be rubbed occasionally when you want your wishes to come true.

Yet, that is just what we try to do. We try to make God into something that He is not, simply because we are afraid to grasp who and what He really is. Not that we will ever fully grasp Who He is – our minds aren’t up to the task – but we are too afraid to even try to truly see His Majesty and Power.

We are afraid to be humbled.

We, as humans (you know, the top of the everything-on-the-planet chain) like to be the ones in control. We are, after all, made in His image! We were told to take care of everything else that was created! Yeah – great job we are doing there too… but that’s another topic entirely…

We don’t like to look to someone else to take care of us or to tell us what to do. We don’t like to admit that we aren’t enough. But God is! That’s the beautiful thing! HE IS ABLE! He created each of us, He knows us better than anyone else ever could!.  He gave us the free will to choose to love Him, or not. But He wants us to love Him. He wants us to realize our great need for Him and turn our lives over to Him. Remember that? He controls everything on this rock except us… but He is waiting for us to realize that we can’t do it without Him. He is waiting for us to look to Him to be our Lord, our Master and our Saviour.

Job realized Who God is… and he confessed. He begged forgiveness of the Almighty for questioning Him. Elijah realized Who God is when he taunted the false prophets. He prayed expectantly that God would reveal Himself in such a powerful way that no one could doubt His power! Elijah knew God well enough to not be afraid to stand up for God’s character. He knew God well enough to know that God would provide the fire that was needed – even under the most impossible circumstances.  He also knew that God would send the rain that the land so desperately needed.

What about Jehoshaphat? He was the king of Israel at a time when they were being attacked. He knew God well enough to know that the first thing they needed to do was to cry out to God! The news of the impending attack came and Good Ol’ Jo went to the temple! He went straight to God and cried out for deliverance! He commanded the priests to cry out to God – he called for all of Judah and Jerusalem to gather together and cry out to God. To someone who doesn’t know God, this looks to be a bad military strategy… Old Jo should have been preparing the troops for battle! Ah, but he was… he was reminding his people who was really in control. God was their true King. He would deliver them from the hands of their enemies!

And you know what? They never even had to fight. They worshiped our wonderful Saviour, and God took care of the battle.

You see, when we give the control of our lives over to God, we don’t need a genie in a bottle to grant our wishes! We don’t need to have a good luck charm in our pocket! We have the Holy Spirit of God living inside us! He is able to bring about His will better than any mere human could ever dream of.

Will there be times when our lives may be in danger? Absolutely. The word “martyr” is closely aligned with christianity for a reason – in fact, it was someone’s name. We may be called to stand up for the God of the Universe, and it may be the last thing we ever do. If that is the path that God has chosen for me though, I pray that I will have the faith and the courage to take that final stand proclaiming His glory for all the world to see and trust that He will use it to expand His kingdom.

I am guilty of trying to carry around a “God in a box” myself. It is so easy to get caught up in our everyday lives – the trials, the struggles and the joys – and forget that God created me for a purpose, and He has a plan for my life. It is so easy to forget to take the time each day to spend with Him – to build that relationship with Him, to come to know Him so well that I will be able to take any stand for Him that He calls me to.

We need to give Him that time!

After all, how willing will we be to take a stand for someone that is only an acquaintance? Someone that we know because of what someone else had told us about them? But if you KNOW someone – you know that you know that you know them – you will have the courage to stand for what is right. You will have the faith to believe that God will come through – one way or another – and that He will be magnified through your circumstances.

That is my prayer for all of God’s people. For myself, my family, my friends, my church family… it is my prayer for you! I pray that we will come to know God as fully as we are able so that our lives are turned back over to Him to control, and that we will walk out our faith in our daily lives to such a degree that His love and grace and mercy will overflow out of our lives and pour out into the lives of everyone who comes into contact with us. That they would not come into contact with us, but with the Creator of the Universe! That we would be the hands and feet and arms and legs and eyes and ears and voice of Jesus reaching out, going out and sending out into a world that needs Him so desperately.

But to do that, first we need to become intimately acquainted with our Creator. We need to know Him.

If the wind and the waves can obey Him, why is it so hard for us?

This is from Matt 8:23-27, where the disciples were terrified during a storm… and Jesus slept.  When they woke Him up, he rebuked them for their lack of faith!

When the storms come in our own lives, how often do we cry out in terror instead of letting God’s peace fill our hearts and trusting that He will see us to the other side of the storm?

He is able – more than able – to accomplish everything He has set before us each and every day, if we will but surrender our wills to His.

So, I’m starting a new bible study online tomorrow using the new Pure Praise book. If you want to join in, head over to TheWorshipCommunity.com for the details.

Being a good student (yes, it does occasionally happen!) I decided to read a bit of it tonight to get my thoughts heading in the right direction – basically skimming the first chapter before diving in.

But I got stuck.

I came upon a portion of day 3 that sent me into Amos… and as I was reading the passage it sent me to, I noticed that there was a coupe of verses that had been underlined at some point in the past… so I re-read them (after all, that’s why we underline them, right?)

Then I went back and read the chapter… chapter 5 of Amos, to be more exact. This is one of those times in Israel’s history that God was sending a prophet of judgment to the northern kingdom… but there are a couple of verses that jumped out at me that I wanted to share.

“Thus says the Lord to the house of Israel. Seek Me – inquire for and of Me and require Me as you require food – and you shall live” Amos 5:4

“Seek the Lord – inquire for and of Him and require Him – and you shall live.” 5:6a

“Seek – inquire for and require – good ans not evil that you may live, and so the Lord, God of hosts, will be with you, as you have said. 15 Hate the evil and love the good and establish justice in the court of the city’s gate. It may be that the Lord, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.” Amos 5:14-15

Are we seeing a pattern here? We are to Seek God – and I loved the insert added into the Amplified Bible – “Inquire for and of Me and require Me as you require food” (emphasis mine) that is what it means to truly seek God. Our souls need Him the way that our bodies need food. He is our nourishment! If we do not require the food that He offers, we will slowly whither away, we will become malnourished. this is not a good thing!

Trust me, there is a reason that these verses jumped out at me. I have been caught up in the business of life and have not taken that time. I have been starving! My spirit is requiring God as my body requires food, yet I have been ignoring those hunger pains.

Then the study sent me over to Psalm 51… and the following jumped off the page.

“O Lord, open my lips and my mouth shall show forth Your praise. For You delight not in sacrifice, or else I would give it. You find no pleasure in burnt offering. My sacrifice – the sacrifice acceptable to God – is a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart [broken down with sorrow for sin and humbly and thoroughly penitent] such, O God, You will not despise.” Ps. 51:15-17

Yes, this is an oft-quoted passage, but again, I love the description… a heart that is broken down with sorrow for sin and humbly and thoroughly penitent. When was the last time you were penitent? Does our modern society even know what it means? I decided to look it up.

pen-i-tent:
–adjective

---

Origin:
1325–75; ME < ML pēnitent-, L paenitent- (s. of paenitēns), prp. of paenitēre to regret; r. ME penaunt < AF; see penance

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

So, a penitent person is contrite., they are expressing sorrow over sin, and “disposed to atonement” – translation please! If you are disposed to atonement, you are open to or inclined towards receiving forgiveness.

So, how do we find ourselves feeling penitent? Is this something that just happens to us as we randomly walk through life? Not usually.

No, in order for our hearts to find themselves humbled and repentant we need to find a reason to recognize that we have sinned. We need to encounter the majesty and glory of a holy God.

If we never see Him – His majesty, His grace, His holiness – we will merely become as self-righteous fools thinking only of how good we are rather than recognizing that WE ARE SINNERS.

Oh, and a self-righteous fool is someone who finds their righteousness within themselves, rather than in God.

So, can you say that? Can you speak – out loud – the words “I am a sinner” and truly mean it? This is a hard thing to do some days! Go ahead, say it. If you cannot recognize that truth, then you cannot truly recognize the grace of God!

The Pharisees did not recognize that either. They were proud of their righteousness! They were proud that they had kept the Law (and added substantially more of their own!) and they weren’t too keen on the fact that Jesus told them that they had to claim to be a sinner.

Are we any better than them?

We need to find a way to truly experience the majesty and awesomeness of God if we want to truly recognize just how lost we are. When we experience the majesty of God – truly experience it – we cannot continue on the former path. We will recognize our weakness, and realize that this thing called life is not something that we can do on our own.

We need God!

We need to be able to cry out “Abba Father” when we fail or are afraid, the same way that our children cry out for us. If we do not know Him, we will not cry out for Him. We need to know the one who introduced Himself as “I AM” – the one who IS always – there is no yesterday, no tomorrow. God is ever-present. He holds our tomorrows in His hands, so there is no reason to fear.

God is majestic, He is holy, and as such He cannot tolerate sin. He is pure! It is for this reason that He had to send a part of Himself – His Son Jesus – to earth to be a sacrifice. We cannot do it on our own – we are not holy. Without the filter of Jesus, God would only see the wretched, filthy rags of our sin clinging to us. Thankfully, Jesus paid the price for our sin on the cross, and when God looks at us through that filter, He sees His perfect, spotless, Holy Son. We can then be accepted into the presence of God.

Praise God!

We now have a direct line of access to the Throne of Grace! We can boldly come before our perfect, majestic God without fear! We can commune with Him, we can talk with Him, we can cry out to Him!

This brings me to the next passage that God put on my heart tonight… Psalm 55.

1 “Listen to my prayer, O God, and hide not yourself from my supplication … (3) I am distracted at the noise of the enemy, because of the oppression and threats of the wicked, for they would cast trouble upon me, and in wrath they persecute me. (4) My heart is grievously pained within me, and the terrors of death have fallen upon me”

(16)”As for me, I will call upon God and the Lord will save me. (17) evening and morning and at noon will I utter my complaint and moan and sigh, and He will hear my voice. (18) He has redeemed my life in peace from the battle that was against me… (22) But I will trust in, lean on and confidently rely on You [God].”

David knew God. He had that direct line of communication with the Most High God, and he was not afraid to use it! He cried out to God with assurance that God would not only hear him, but that God would answer his cry! Do we come before Him with that same boldness? Do we have that same confidence in our relationship with God that we will come before Him with expectation of what He will do?

We should.

We are surrounded on all sides by an enemy that is distracting. He will do whatever he can to keep us from crying out to God – boldness and assurance or not. He will make us too busy to carve out that time alone with God. He will distract us from the beauty of what God has brought us through in the past by dredging up our past failures – taking our focus off of God and putting it on us. He will pull out any and everything that he can think of to take our eyes off of God.

But what did David do? He cried out to God morning, noon and night! He made his petitions known to a God that could take care of everything – and he knew it.

We need to cry out when we are surrounded by the noise and distractions that come from our enemy. We need to have the confidence in God and in our relationship with Him that He will hear our cry and act upon it.

Yes, God does allow times of trials and testing to come our way, but these times are there to bring us back to God. They also serve to shine out His light to the unbelievers around us. How we react to the trials in our lives will show them the difference that comes from having a relationship with Jesus Christ.

The bible says “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” We must first humble ourselves enough to seek His face. To come face to face with His holiness, so that we can truly see our sin. Once we truly see our sin – recognize it and admit it – then we can begin to understand our need for Him. For His grace and mercy in our lives.

I challenge both of us to carve out that time in our busy schedules to seek Him. To realize our need for Him that is greater than our need for food. We need to feed our spirit with the Word of God, so that we don’t find ourselves so malnourished that when the enemy distracts us, it’s an easy job.

Instead, I want to be a woman that when I wake up, all of hell groans in fear of what God will use me to do that day. I want to be so close to Him that every aspect of my life is lived out in submission to Him, and – most importantly – in worship of Him.

God alone is worthy of worship. We were created to give Him worship. He longs for it, and our hearts yearn to do it! Why do we stand in the way of that connection?

Let’s open up that connection, let’s seek after the One who is worthy of praise and be humbled by His glory – the glory of the Most High. Let’s give Him the praise that is due to Him and Him alone.

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*God works so mysteriously! Thanks to Pastor Chris for letting me borrow some of his points from the sermon today – they helped God get the point that He was making to me through these verses.

We are now in the second week of Advent, so I’m running a bit behind!

The message of Advent is simple – prepare your hearts for the coming Lord.

For this week’s Word Filled Wednesday, I thought I’d share a few images and a passage on Mary’s preparation for her coming Savior. Enjoy!

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Luke 1:26-38

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In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.

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The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”

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Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.

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But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God.

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You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus

He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High

The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.

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“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?

The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.

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Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month.

For nothing is impossible with God.”

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“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it be to me as you have said.”

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Then the angel left her.

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May we all have the faith to answer God in the same manner… “I am the Lord’s servant, let it be to me as you have said”

I included the pictures from The Nativity Story as a reminder of the sacrifice that Mary (and later Joseph) would have to make during this time. Many people think of the beautiful picture of Mary in blue holding a curly-haired baby boy with Joseph standing or kneeling over them – a happy family. What many forget to realize is the change that would have come about in their lives as a result of this pregnancy.

1. They were not married yet. Whether the child was Joseph’s or not, they would be viewed as though they had begun their married life in sin.
2. Because they were not yet married, there would have been a social backlash against them. How much harder was it for Joseph to provide for “his” family when people wanted nothing to do with them?
3. Mary took a great chance – through faith in God – that Joseph himself would not stone her. That her family would not stone her. Being pregnant outside of marriage was a much more serious offense than we view it now. The penalty was death – and not a comfortable one either.
4. This was a recipe for disaster in a marriage – what is the percentage of marriages that fail because they were entered into due to pregnancy? Add to that the knowledge that this child was not the husband’s? Yes, God spoke to Joseph confirming the truth, but still… how many men would still question it?

Also keep in mind that Mary was only 15 years old. How many of us would have the level of faith to believe that God would provide in this situation? Even those of us with more than twice her years of experience? Te be shunned by your neighbors, to have a backlash against your new family, your parents, to be estranged from family and friends… then to find yourself making a long journey towards the end of your pregnancy, ending up in a stable! Most likely not a pretty one like we display each year, but a cave filled with the stench of animals. Pregnant, surrounded by the smells of wet fur, animal waste, rotting food… if that doesn’t cause you to be thankful for modern medicine, not much will! Then to give birth on the hay and manure-covered floor of a cave filled with animals. I thought this was the Son of God! Shouldn’t His life start out in nicer surroundings? Mary showed a tremendous amount of faith.

Joseph, also, was called out to place his trust in God. To take “damaged goods” as a wife – and to still love her. To see his business falter due to bad publicity, and to be saddled with the burden of a child – not HIS child – to provide for and care for. Oh, and to find your name on Herod’s Most Wanted list… fleeing with your small family for your lives. To follow God’s leading wherever He sent you. To love this boy as your own, to raise Him up, to shelter Him, to teach Him, and to treat Him no differently than your own children. And to not have your heart stung when He made references to the fact that you are not His father… yes, that took a great deal of faith and trust.

But, God will also provide the faith that we need to make it through each day of our lives. He will not call us to do anything that is beyond His ability to carry us through it. Will lit be beyond our ability to do it in our own strength? Absolutely! Otherwise we would not find the need to rely on Him to see it through.

As you prepare your heart for the coming celebration of our Lord’s birth, keep in mind the sacrifices that were made by the people surrounding Him before He was even born, and let their faith strengthen yours.

I pray that I will answer God’s call on my life in much the same way… “let it be done to me as You have said, for I am the servant of the Lord.”