Bible

Set your mind……

If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Colossians 3:1-3

A pilot friend of mine once said that there was nothing in the world more relaxing than flying. Something about being above it all makes your problems seem smaller. Every now and then I have flying dreams, and it’s wonderful. I soar around skyscrapers and sometimes I just hover and float. Don’t you wish we could just order up our dreams?

There is a way however, that we can lift ourselves above it all, where Christ is. That is by setting our minds on things above. Scripture is the best and most immediate way to do this. Since the Bible is a living book, it has the power to transform our very thought process! This is not Harry Potter magic, where you wave a wand and presto, all your problems go away (darn) This is actually way better, because though circumstances can change in the blink of an eye, God never does!

When we read the Bible with an open heart, we are tapping into the very source of Life itself.

The Word was there from the very beginning………”In the beginning was the Word…….” Not only that, the Bible says the Word and God are one and the same! It is timeless, ageless, and all sufficient. It is wisdom, it is power, it is the bread of life, it is the manna that came down from Heaven! It is the best way I know to keep my thoughts going in the right direction.

If you are living with someone who constantly sees the negative in every situation, it is hard not to find yourself going right down that road with them. To stop being who you are, and become them. But you don’t have to. You can be determined to set your mind above, where God is.

Find some life…..

Go outside, take a walk.

Go to the Mall and watch people.

Get around someone who can show you yourself again.

Do like my best friend who has been known to break into song and dance everytime Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” comes on. And if she can still sing and dance after everything she has been through this year, anyone can….like she is fond of saying:

Sometimes you just gotta give it a little dance.

Happy Birthday Elaine, best of friends…….you continually inspire me to see the good in everything…….

No One Knows

“However, no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows.” Mark 13:32

In case you have been in a coconut or under a shrub in the desert, (I have seen these people) you have heard that this is the day. The end of the world as we know it will happen just about the time I get off work today….6PM. That is just not right. To think I have to put in a whole twelve hour shift! All kidding aside, I think this has turning into one great big circus. There are billboards all over town sponsored by a radio station called Family Radio, which has nothing to do with the Family Life Radio I listen to every day. They are very distressed about it, even tried to buy all the billboards but they were blocked. Who are these people???

Amidst all the speculation and untruth floating around out there, the Word stands firm on this subject. That is where we need to go, and that is where we need to remain. The end will come someday, but we don’t know exactly when. Jesus said He will come back when we least expect it, but he also gave us some clues and signs we should look for. I don’t know about you, but I think we need to start looking up. It could be today, or it could be in 50 years, but I know one thing, we need to be ready. End of story.

“For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.” 1 Thessalonions 4:14-18
 
That’s God’s story and I’m stickin to it!

Jesus didn’t preach grey sermons

I believe that every absolute truth Jesus spoke, was spoken in absolute love……….

and sometimes with tears streaming down His face.

Our culture is becoming increasingly more uncomfortable with absolute truth. We get nervous when bold statements are made. In mixed crowds we feel the need to be careful, to make people feel at ease, comfortable. But much of Jesus time on earth was spent making people feel very uncomfortable. So uncomfortable that He was almost stoned (John 10:32) and pushed off a cliff (Luke 4:29).

I found a post yesterday on Matt’s blog, click here that I just have to share. I think it is the best post I have read in a while because I have been increasingly uncomfortable about what I have been hearing from some popular Christian pastors and leaders today. I hope it speaks to you as it spoke to me, it was really like a breath of fresh air blown into my soul.

Things Jesus didn’t say:

I am one of the ways the truth and the life

You don’t have to come through me to get to the Father

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. Romans 10:9,10

Couldn’t resist, I love those pesky seagulls……all pics from public domain pictures

Information Overload

“This is my comfort in my affliction, for Your word has given me life.” Psalm 119:50

I think it’s good to have information, but sometimes you can just reach the point where you say, enough! You can read so many opinions and so many commentaries, and so many people expounding on other people expounding, that you can get literally worn out. That how I was last week after about 2 hours of surfing Christian websites. After awhile, all the words started to swirl around in my head. It was like they were all fighting for places to attach themselves. I like what my Pastor used to say, “Don’t believe me, go and read the Bible for yourself!”

I really respected that. This was a very educated man, but he knew that the real teacher of the Word is the Holy Spirit. When you open the Bible and your heart at the same time, amazing things can happen. That evening last week I got in the car for the commute home, with my mind still swirling, and put in my Bible on CD. Driving in my car, listening to the rhythm of the road, and the rhythm of the Word, I felt the familiar warmth still the fluttering in my mind.

What I needed was the healing balm of the Word, and nothing else. It filled the cracks, made my desert soul an oasis once again.

Information and opinion are good, but nothing beats the truth of the Word. I don’t want to be like these guys……

“May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean.” (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.) Acts 17:19-21

Wading through Job……

“A word was secretly brought to me, my ears caught a whisper of it. Amid disquieting dreams in the night, when deep sleep falls on people, fear and trembling seized me and made all my bones shake. A spirit glided past my face, and the hair on my body stood on end. It stopped, but I could not tell what it was. A form stood before my eyes, and I heard a hushed voice: Job 4:12-16

I wonder, what would the ancient trees of Gethsemane tell us if they could talk………there are whisperings there I believe even now, sometimes I imagine how it would be there in the twilight of evening. There where Jesus prayed, disciples dreamed in slumber, Angels comforted, and Satan hovered over it all.
And when it was all over…..Jesus rose again, spirit, body, soul…..death was swallowed up in victory

When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” 1 Corinthians 15:54

I am wading through Job now. I am going slow so that I don’t miss anything. I have read it and listened to it many times, but I somehow missed this verse. It reminded me of something out of Charles Dickens and the Ghost of Christmas past. Sometimes the Bible surprises me…..

God loves the unloved……..

“Now Laban had two daughters: the name of the elder was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. Leah’s eyes were delicate, but Rachel was beautiful of form and appearance.” Genesis 29:16,17

Some translations say that Leah had “weak eyes.” Maybe she was nearsighted or farsighted, maybe she just had small eyes. We don’t know for sure. I can relate to this right now. About 3 weeks ago I got new progressive lenses. I noticed about a year ago that I was having a hard time reading. For a book addict like me, this was a problem. So I went to Big Lots and got a three pack of readers for five bucks. They work great, but I still needed my others for distance. I was tired of constantly taking glasses on and off. I was constantly misplacing them.

About $500.00 later, I walked out the door with two shiny new pair. The first thing I noticed that the ground rose up to meet me. For three weeks I felt like I was walking on a slanting sidewalk. I didn’t know where to put my eyeballs. I am used to just looking through glasses in one place. Now I had to put them one place to see, and one place to read. After battling with taking them back, I was on the way to the Mall to turn them in and I suddenly felt like they were do-able.

I identify with Leah. I think we all do. She was overshadowed by Rachel the beautiful. She probably felt very average and unremarkable standing next to her sister, the one everyone wanted to be around, the one everyone complimented. Furthermore, she knew that Jacob loved her sister, not her. But God took notice of her. I love that: “When the LORD saw that Leah was unloved, He opened her womb; but Rachel was barren. So Leah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Reuben; for she said, “The LORD has surely looked on my affliction. Now therefore, my husband will love me.”

I have to admit, when I read that passage I want to pump my fist in the air and say, “Yeah, Leah!” “Yeah, God!” I say it for every girl that has stood in the background at the dance, for every girl picked last in the Sports lineup. For every girl who has felt unremarkable and unloved.
While Rachel still could not conceive, Leah had four sons. What is more, the lineage of Jesus Christ our savior comes through Judah, Leah’s fourth son. “And she conceived again and bore a son, and said, “Now I will praise the LORD.” Therefore she called his name Judah.Then she stopped bearing. Genesis 29:35

I like what this all says about God. He notices the one everyone else doesn’t. That is the small part of what I noticed when I read these passages, and that is the part I rested on in my meditation. Who wins in the end? It is hard to say. Jacob probably loved Rachel the most, and also did favor his two sons by her.
In the end, we all win, we all got a Savior!

Its all about Grace……

“For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Ephesians 2:8,9

What I keep noticing as I read through the Bible is that thread of grace that runs like a river all the way through it. I have only done this once before, read it all the way through. I am reading slowly, wading through the current carefully, taking my time. I stalled out trying to pick one of the sophisticated plans online. There are so many to choose from…….You Version, Logos, Daily Bible…..God knows me so well, that my indecision renders me useless at times. The Spirit breathed into my heart……”Just pick it up and read from cover to cover.” So that is what I’m doing.

I have reached the story of Jacob and Esau, where Jacob cheated Esau out of his rightful birthright. I think in my own mind, I am wondering why God would continue to bless Jacob and choose him as the heir, especially after what he did to Esau. But when I study further, I find that Esau had many character flaws as well. And Jacob did not get off scot-free. Here is what it says in the notes to my study Bible:

Jacob the trickster gets his due. After pulling off the ruse, he has to run for his life and spends 20 years in exile with his Uncle. Uncle Laban then gives Jacob a dose of his own medicine by planting an unwanted sister in his wedding bed and by repeatedly changing his wages as head shepherd……This reads a bit like a TV reality show.

When I read all these stories, I am deeply affected by how God uses us despite our many failures, flaws and imperfections. It’s all about Grace…..unmerited favor. None of us deserves what God has done for us through Jesus Christ, but He did it anyway. That’s how much He wants to have a relationship with us……

My Father, how thankful I am that you are always active in “good works” towards me. I can never repay your goodness to me. And all that you ask is that I not tire of doing what’s right, no matter how unresponsive the heart of some whom you’ve called me to serve. Only You can give me strength and courage today, because You know where the way is rugged. Fix my sights on the coming harvest of joy! David Hazard…….”Early Will I Seek You”……40 days in the company of Augustine.

Weighing in on the side of Love

“Everything is permissible”—but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible”—but not everything is constructive. Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others. 1 Corinthians 10:23,24

When Paul was speaking to the Corinthian believers, he was trying to get them to understand that although they had liberty to do certain things, it wasn’t necessarily in their best interests or the interests of others to do them. They had issues that were dividing the church and they were squabbling amongst themselves about what was right and what was wrong. Basically they wanted to know what they could “get away with” and “what they couldn’t.” Paul said that wasn’t the issue, love was. Placing stumbling blocks in front of others was the issue.

Anytime we in the church do something, we need to remember it affects the church as a whole. The eyes of the world are watching what we do. Does that Pastor have the right to burn the Koran? Yes, because this is a free country. Should he? Absolutely not. People have been burning Bibles for centuries. What should our response be? I don’t care if every Bible on earth is burned, the Word of God will still stand forever, and it will still be in our hearts. No one and nothing will ever change that. There are times to stand up and there are times to “stand down.”

Paul said, “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God— even as I try to please everybody in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved. 1 Corinthians 10:31-33

Here is the difference. If someone told me I could no longer worship publicly in my church and that if I did so, I would be incurring someone’s wrath, that now becomes an issue between me and God, because the Bible says not to forsake the “assembling of ourselves together” in worship. So I would have to choose obeying God rather than man.  I think we can agree that burning the Koran will do nothing but harm everyone involved. That is my take on the situation…..Hop on over here to Cliff’s to see a view I agree with!

Final thought…..what if Christ had exercised His liberty when the decision was made whether to go to the cross? He had every right to stay in Heaven and write us off. But thankfully that is not how God works….His motive is always and forever, LOVE.

“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!” Philippians 2:5-8

My favorite Bible

I have several Bibles, but there is one that is my favorite. I call it “Big Red.” I purchased it as a special edition they had available at church after I attended a “Walk thru the Prophets” seminar back in 1980. When I first got it, I had just re-committed my life to Christ and so I clung to it as a life preserver, devouring its pages. I thought it was the most beautiful Bible I had ever seen. The gilding on the side had a magical sheen to it and I loved the way it looked as the lamplight hit it. I drank it in like the bread of life that it is.
It has many pages of notes taken from many different sermons, Bible studies, and thoughts of my own thrown in. I can page through them and see a bit of my personal history, and it warms me to see all that God has done through the years. I see the year our choir performed Handel’s Messiah and my brother gave his life to the Lord, gallantly striding up the aisle in his white shirt, a grown man looking purposeful and humble all at the same time.  Thoughts I wrote that same morning sitting out in my parent’s yard on Easter, just before the sun came up. I can still feel the peaceful beauty of that morning like a cloak wrapped around me.  
I see a bit of my church history also, which is rather colorful. There are notes from churches I attended in my hometown of Lodi California, Sacramento, Woodbridge, and Chandler and Mesa, Arizona.
It started out Burgundy red leather, and rather stiff, but now it is faded and supple. I had to glue the spine back together  awhile back, and time has dulled the luster of gold from the edges. The words within, however, burn brighter than ever. They have not faded, but only become more brilliant with time. 
There were also seasons in my life when it collected dust, I thought my own wisdom was better.  
There are yellow highlights all the way through it, although much more in some places than others, and there are places where tears of both sorrow and joy have spilled onto the pages. Everyone who touches it touches a part of me. The words in it have comforted me more times than I can count and it comes along to my “closet” when I pray. It is my faithful companion.
Bibles have always played a special part in many family histories. My Mom has my Grandfather’s German Bible, and I have my Mom’s special one, which used to be mine. Remember “The Way” version that came out in the seventies? My best friend has her Grandmother’s and Grandfather’s and I also have my late husband’s Bible that he got from an old girlfriend!
My Grandmother thought that all Bibles had to be black (or white for Baptism) and she only recognized the King James version.
How about you? Do you have a favorite? What has it meant to you? I would love to hear about it!
“Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.” Psalm 119:105

The Gift of Memory


Remembering, we settle into the rocker on the front porch, the front porch of our minds, and gaze out at the view. Sorting through, we pull up the pleasant memories and settle in for awhile. The view is great, and it’s good to remember. Memory is one of God’s best gifts. Practicing selective memory we can even edit out the ones that weren’t so great and go on to the ones that were. Or if there weren’t any, we can even manufacture our own version of the past.

My friend and her brother had an interesting conversation with their Mom once. Their memory was decidedly much different than hers was. You see she worked all the time, wasn’t home, they signed their own report cards and what they heard most of the time growing up amidst the chaos was, “Get out of the house, I need to sleep!” She was saying that she made them cookies growing up. They both looked at each other incredulously, for she had never made a cookie in all their childhood. She didn’t like desserts, so they didn’t get them either. But they do remember making macaroni and cheese together in the middle of the night, that’s one memory they hold onto.

Ask yourself what your child will remember of their childhood. What sights, sounds, smells, images will take them back, and will it be good? Will they remember laughter, or stony silence? Animated dinner conversation or the crackling air of irritation, impatience, anger. Will they remember trips taken as a family with pleasure or will they associate those trips with a sense of anxiety?

The wonderful thing about all memories good, bad or indifferent, is that they can draw us closer if we let them. Even the bad times have a wonderful way of bonding us together when we have traveled down the road a bit. We just have to let them do their work.

God has a memory book called the Bible. It is His Book of Remembrance. If we keep it close we will always remember who He is and who we are. It is His way of saying, “This is what happened, and it is a part of you too, it is your heritage, filled with stories of My people and yours. Read it, live it, and it will become part of you. Most importantly, it will carry you into eternity with Me.”

Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Deuteronomy 11:18

Not only that, the Bible is a living book, just like we are all living memories of what has come before and what will come after….

Keeping memories alive today with the counting……#401 opening tent flap disheveled to first heavenly cup of coffee, #402 a juice bar at the end of a hike, #403 rain on tent roof, #404 Mom’s hands curling my hair for picture day, #405 brother and I getting in trouble for laughing at Grandma’s table, #406 warm fronts, cold backs around campfire, #407 getting inside inner tube and rolling down Aunt’s hill, #408 something baked from scratch waiting on counter after school, #409 the sound of metal skates on cement, #410, watching Dad sketch and make a beautiful drawing from nothing…..

holy experience