God’s love

A Great Mystery

“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.” Acts 17:24-26

Our lives will never be complete until we are reunited with our Father who created us. God has not hidden Himself, it is really rather easy to see Him every single day. When you listen to a child pray you hear how easy it is for them to speak freely without inhibition. They will pray about everything from a sick pet, to something that happened on the playground. When do we lose that?

The truth is, God is very close to us all and it is very easy to see Him every day.

When our heart is receptive….
When our minds dare to hope for what seems impossible.  Jesus said, “If? There are no ‘ifs’ among believers. Anything can happen.” Mark 9:23 The Message

To me it is one of the great mysteries. How two people can hear the gospel message and one accepts, while the other rejects.

What would make my as yet unbelieving sister in law listen to a song called “Give Me Jesus,” a song I barely understood the words to as sung by Jessye Norman, filled with inflection and operatic overtones. What would make her understand and respond to every single word……and in her shaky hand, her body weak from cancer and chemo write the name of the artist and song title down?


And what would make my very liberal sister in law, also accept an invitation to a play one night, a play about Heaven and Hell, something I thought she would never attend? We were all surprised, and even more so when she walked down the aisle at the end to say “Yes” to Jesus.
 
Yes to Heaven, where she resides now.
 
Somebody prays, someone is sent, somebody preaches, somebody listens and responds……. Yes, it is a great mystery!

“How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?” Romans 10:14

Sometimes we preach with actions, sometimes with words, and hopefully always with lots of love behind them both….
 
What about you? What made you decide to follow Jesus?
 
God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing. C.S. Lewis

Jonah’s Timeout

Then Jonah prayed to his God from the belly of the fish. He prayed: “In trouble, deep trouble, I prayed to God. He answered me.From the belly of the grave I cried, ‘Help!’ You heard my cry. Jonah 2: 1,2 The Message
Jonah had a tough assignment. This was no job for sissies. It wasn’t just a tough sales presentation where every word and action will be judged, critiqued, and torn-apart…..or the boss telling you to fire an employee when you know they need the job desperately. This was God telling Jonah to go to a very strong and prosperous nation, also a nation that was notoriously cruel and bloodthirsty. This was a people that would put hooks in the noses of their captives and lead them off to slavery. They were also a huge threat to Israel.
Jonah responded immediate by running the other way, as fast as he could. So would I.
Just imagine if God asked you to go preach on a street corner in Iraq!
One of my favorite poets, Robert Frost said this about the book of Jonah: “After Jonah, you could never trust God not to be merciful again.”
Jonah had an idea that the Ninevites would repent. He knew His was a God of mercy. But forgiveness is hard, and God knew that Jonah had some issues inside himself that he had to deal with. Jonah was actually not running from God but from himself. Ever run away, only to find that the issues you were running away from followed you?
God gave Jonah a timeout so He could really hear was God was trying to say. God had to take him to a place of desperation, darkness. All the way into the belly of a great fish. Sometimes God has to take us somewhere unpleasant, sometimes flat on our back, so that we can really hear what He is trying to say to us.
After three days Jonah came to a place of understanding:
“You hurled me into the depths, into the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me; all your waves and breakers swept over me. I said, ‘I have been banished from your sight; yet I will look again toward your holy temple.’ The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head. To the roots of the mountains I sank down; the earth beneath barred me in forever. But you, LORD my God, brought my life up from the pit.” 3-6
Sometimes we need God to take us into the whale belly so we can remember who He is……..”Then the word came to Jonah a second time”, and this time he obeyed. After he preached to them the Ninevites believed God and the whole city declared a fast and called on the Lord. Here are the King’s own words:
“Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence.Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.”
God spared that great city…..Read Chapter 4 and you will see a beautiful picture of the great compassion of God and how He desperately wants people to turn to Him so that they can receive His forgiveness and love……..I love the discourse between God and Jonah after Jonah gets mad when the people repent.
Prayer: God, help me to learn from my “timeouts.” To remember that you love me, but you also love others and wish to show your compassion and love to everyone. Help me to remember who You are, and learn obedience when you call on me to show Your compassion and love to others, remembering that it is not up to me to decide who is worthy and who is not. Amen

Behold Your God……

A voice says, “Cry out.”
And I said, “What shall I cry?”
“All people are like grass,
and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field.
The grass withers and the flowers fall,
because the breath of the LORD blows on them.
Surely the people are grass.
The grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of our God endures forever.” Isaiah 40:6-8
Isaiah 40 is one of my favorite passages of Scripture……the imagery in it captures my imagination. As I read it I see Isaiah stepping up to a giant canvas, brush in hand…..waiting to see what God will do. The canvas seems to take on a life of its own as the Spirit speaking through him begins to fill it with all the colors of Heaven and earth, lush valleys, flowering meadows, lush streams and God, the Master Creator above it all…..He paints a stark picture of the brevity of our lives, the futility of trying to live a life without God……the breath of His mouth blowing us into the dust we started out as. He is over all, in all and through all.
But then here in verse 11 is another picture he paints of God…..

“He gathers the lambs in his arms
and carries them close to his heart;
he gently leads those that have young.”

……that of God as Gentle Shepherd wanting to heal a wounded Israel, a wounded world…….

Saint Jerome says of Isaiah: “He was more of an Evangelist than a Prophet, because he described all of the Mysteries of the Church of Christ so vividly that you would assume he was not prophesying about the future, but rather was composing a history of past events. ”

In the midst of all this beauty we see another picture start to form…….all the vivid colors of the painting melt away with the fervent heat of a relentless desert scene and a lone figure walks down a dusty road. We hear the shouts of John the Baptist carried across the desert wind and we watch the crowds coming out to see this crazy fool of a man who was telling them to repent. They couldn’t stop themselves from listening because somewhere deep inside they recognized truth.

The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! John 1:29

The lonely figure is now walking towards us and as He gets closer, we see that He is wearing a crown of thorns and bleeding, stumbling under the weight of a massive cross…….”Behold the man,” Pilate says, and then he turns and washes his hands as if he could dismiss Jesus that easily….His wife watches from a distance, eyes sunken in from lack of sleep from the nightmares she had the night before….about Jesus. Matt. 27:19

Suddenly it all comes together………Isaiah states: Behold Your God! The statement itself demands a response from us. Isaiah rings with promise…..we no longer have to wait. The highway in the desert has been built, it is straight and plain and visible for all to see. There are many other roads to take but only this one leads to Heaven…..

“In the wilderness prepare
the way for the LORD;
make straight in the desert
a highway for our God. Isaiah 40:3

photo credit: http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/ by Anna Cervova

Fellowship of the Unashamed

An African martyr’s last words…….
I am part of the Fellowship of the Unashamed.
The die has been cast, I have stepped over the line.
The decision has been made. I am a disciple of Jesus Christ.
I won’t look back, let up, slow down, back away, or be still. My past is
redeemed, my present makes sense, and my future is secure.
I’m finished and done with low living, sight-walking, small
planning, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tame visions,
mundane talking, cheap giving, and dwarfed goals
My pace is set, my gait is fast, my goal is Heaven, my road is narrow, my way
is rough, my companions few, my Guide reliable, my mission clear.
I won’t give up, back up, let up, or shut up until I’ve preached up, prayed up,
paid up, stored up, and stayed up for the cause of Christ.
I must go until He returns, give until I drop, preach
until all know, and work until He comes.
And when He comes to get His own, He will have no
problem recognizing me. My colors will be clear.
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes………” Romans 1:16
Since time is short today, I thought I would share this writing that I found. When I read it I can hear the echoes of the Apostle Paul as he travels from city to city with the Gospel message. Once his life’s work was persecuting the church, and by the end of his life he is ready to die and does die for the cause of Christ. What happened in between? He met Jesus. What happened to this African martyr? He met Jesus.
Will He be able to recognize me?……it is a sobering question, but one I think I can never stop asking.
 “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

Just Believe……

You have everything you need, if you just believe…… “Believe,” from Polar Express
I have never watched Polar Express all the way through until last night. I stayed up longer than I should have just to see the little boy find the bell. I think I watched it partly for my Dad since he has confessed that this is his favorite movie. Even at 82, when he watches it you can see the glimmer of childhood innocence in his eyes. He told me last time I was home that, “I am that boy in the movie……” Dad’s was a childhood of lost and broken dreams with both parents alcoholics. He says that every Christmas started out great and ended up with both parents in a screaming match. He says every year he hoped that it would be different but it never was.
This leaves a permanent scar on a soul; and to his credit, he made our childhood everything his wasn’t. Our Christmases were filled with magic and promise. He made sure that we had all the security he never had. There were two promises he made to us and to himself. There would never be shouting in our home and there wasn’t, and that we would never see him drunk and we never did.  I have wonderful memories of my childhood because of choices my Dad and my Mom made. 
We can choose to build and repair what is broken or leave it behind us and create a new mess. We can also create something good and watch beauty emerge from a pile of rubble. We can also choose to open the windows and let the bad out, and keep it out. God never expects us to hitch our wagon  to someone else’s negativity and darkness and go over the cliff with them.
As I watched last night, through my Dad’s eyes, I imagined some things about how it must have been for him when Grandpa took off when he was five. How scared he probably was. I was remembering how good it was for me as a child. I thought of an ocean of children out there waiting for the Polar Express to show up for them, the adults who were still waiting. As I watched, I rooted for that little boy.
There is something in a child that God loves. Jesus said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 18:3

God longs to take the lost little child within you into His arms and give you back everything that was stolen from you as a child. He longs to restore you……Even those of us with happy childhoods long to go back to that time when things seemed so simple, when belief was easy and everything was within the realm of possibility.

My Dad’s Mom died young as a result of her drinking, but my Grandfather got married again and quit drinking. He was a part of my life when I was a kid. My Dad had to make another choice to let him back into his life. He saw the benefit of that, and we had some good times together. Sometimes burned bridges can be rebuilt to a certain extent. My Dad and he were never really close, but Grandpa in his later years was a kind man, and he loved us. He took my brother and I to the Elks Lodge every Christmas. I remember the one year I really thought I heard Santa’s Sleigh outside the building.

There is a whole army of people out there that have been brave enough to make something good out of the wreckage of their past. To create wonder for someone else, and magic out of mayhem. To believe that Love is the most powerful thing of all….I was remembering as I slipped into slumber last night. Remembering my own time of magic, when I used to sit by the Christmas tree at night all by myself, lost in wonder.
In the remembering, I felt a tear make its way down the corner of my eye…….
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8

Fellowship with the King

 And Mary said:
“My soul glorifies the Lord
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has been mindful
of the humble state of his servant.”
What a great time of prayer I had this morning……..a time of precious communion with the Lord in the quiet hours. I got to watch His dawn once more, filling the sky with color. As I opened the door to see the sunrise, I scared a couple of doves that had settled on the rooftop next door, their whistling wings rustling as they took off. 
He has given me 51 years on this earth and I am grateful, more and more, for every minute He gives me. Each one is an offering to Him. Sometimes I confess the offering is frightfully meager but He accepts them anyway. He has given me a great gift, appreciation for each moment, because each one holds an opportunity to tell others what great things He wants to do for us, and what He has already done….
Thank you Father, for your precious Spirit who lives within me and every one who confesses You as Lord. I don’t deserve such a gift! You didn’t think it was beneath You to come and live in this inadequate imperfect bundle of flesh that is me!
Makes me identify a bit with Mary this morning….

“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.” 1 John 3:1

Advent…..Come Lord Jesus

When once again Christmas comes and we hear the familiar carols and sing the Christmas hymns, something happens to us, and a special kind of warmth slowly encircles us. The hardest heart is softened. We recall our own childhood. We feel again how we then felt, especially if we were separated from a mother. A kind of homesickness comes over us for past times, distant places, and yes, a blessing longing for a world without violence or hardness of heart. But there is something more–a longing for the safe lodging of the everlasting Father. And that leads our thoughts to the curse of homelessness which hangs heavily over the world.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, December 2nd, 1928 Advent Sunday.

I thought it fitting to choose from these selections from “Christmas Sermons” by Dietrich Bonhoeffer since I don’t have much time to post. I stumbled across this book stuck in Dad’s overflowing bookshelf and thought, “What a neat little book!” Then I looked inside. Lo and behold it had my inscription on the front flap. “To Dad, Merry Christmas, 2005….Love, Lori” I had forgotten that it was from me! And now it has some of his notations and highlights. Those are always wonderful to find. I think of the time in the future when I will open it, and he won’t be here anymore. It is a reality that I must face, sooner rather than later, since he is now 83. At that time, painful as it will be, he will be celebrating a true Christmas for all eternity, waiting for me there. I can imagine him making me a bed by the fire as he did when I was growing up, getting it ready as he did for my little niece just last night.

That is what Christmas is truly about……because of Christmas we have a future in Heaven! That is our reality if we know Christ. Because of that we can join the angels in saying:

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.” Luke 2:14

December 1st has always been a special time for me. It is somehow different than November 30th. A different feeling stirs in my soul, a place of quiet rests within, amidst all the bustle and flow of everything going on…..I always want to drag my foot to slow things down, make it last….pull the oar backwards to stop the flow of whitewater that threatens, waits around the bend.

It will be over all too soon……slow down and make it last. But after all, every day is Advent to us. What a blessing to have such an unspeakable Gift……”And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has given you. Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!” 2 Corinthians 9:14,15

A quiet knock…..

Every day, a quiet voice answers our cry , gently, persuasively, “I stand at the door and knock.”

Should we tremble at these words, this voice? The Spirit that we have called for, the Spirit that saves the world, is already here, at the door, knocking, patiently waiting for us to open the door. He has been there a long time and he has not gone away. His is a very quiet voice and few hear it. The cries of the marketplace and of those who sell shoddy goods are all too loud. But the knocking goes on, despite the noise, we hear it at last. What shall we do? Who is it? Are we afraid or impatient? Perhaps we feel a little fear, lest someone undesirable is at the door, dangerous or with malignant intent. Should we open? In all this fuss, the royal visitor stands patiently, unrecognized, waiting. He knocks again, quite softly. Can you hear Him?

Detrich Bonhoeffer’s Christmas Sermons, December 2nd 1928

“I stand at the door and knock.” Revelation 3:20

For the first time this year, I got swept up in Black Friday mania. I didn’t actually go out to a store, I shopped online. I don’t really know what came over me. It swept over me like a fever. I felt myself carried along a swift tide and the waters went from calm and clear to white and churning. Part of it was because I had  a deadline. I knew I was going to head out of town and I had a list, you see……I wanted to make sure everything was done, checked off. All day I went back and forth, this site, that site, this item, that item……which was the right one, which was the better buy? Finally around 5:00 PM I made the final choice.

Click……done.

It wasn’t a peaceful day, my peace went somewhere and I missed it. I went out to my prayer shed for just a moment that evening to say a prayer of thanks for the day, for God’s mercy and His unending love and patience. Every day He knocks and waits for me……..For us. I am so glad He does.

Psalm 86:15

But you, Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.Psalm 86:15

The view from the top

The climber climbs for the joy of it, and because he believes the view from the top will be worth it. We climb too, knowing the Keeper of our steps holds our feet fast; though we slip He keeps us from falling headlong. Though the climb is strenuous and sometimes difficult He surprises us with joys unspeakable on the journey at every turn and infuses us with the hope of victory at the top where He waits…… 
“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. Acts 17:24-27
There will be many people at malls in the coming weeks, and rushing too and fro on the freeways, working, eating, visiting, sleeping, and all the while there is a God who waits for them to look His way. He does not need us, but He wants us!
His heart aches for knowing that those who do know Him will not speak of Him often enough, though they know the wonderful truth, the wonderful story…….Lord, make Your Word sing in our hearts and make the melody so bright, so clear, so strong that we can no longer keep it in!

Final thoughts on "Radical"

You and I stand on the porch of eternity. Both of us will soon stand before God to give an account for our stewardship of the time, the resources, the gifts, and ultimately the gospel he has entrusted to us. When that day comes, I am convinced we will not wish we had given more of ourselves to living the American dream. We will not wish we had made more money, acquired more stuff, lived more comfortably taken more vacations, watched more television, pursued greater retirement, or been more successful in the eyes of the world.  David Platt, “Radical”

I am very glad I read this book, I think. I say I think because I found certain parts about it unsettling. I was confronted with some things about myself that made me uncomfortable and that is not a bad thing. Any time you read a book and find yourself wanting to dive into Scripture and re-read verses you have read almost all your life I think it’s good. David Platt puts a spotlight behind the words of Jesus in such a way that we can no longer brush them off or explain them away and skip merrily on to the next verse. You know, the warm fuzzy verses that tell you how much God loves you. He does love us, and if we know Him, then He already has us. But there is a vast and lonely world out there that does not know Him, has never heard the Gospel, who are hungry and thirsty and sick, and may not make it through the day. God is asking…….what are you, my church, going to do about it?

God has entrusted the church with the awesome responsibility of taking His good news to everyone else on the planet, with getting it to them before they die. It is a life and death message, and its an urgent one. It won’t happen by any kind of magic osmosis. It won’t necessarily happen fast, and it may take some time. By investing in relationships long term.

I came away from this book with a deeper understanding of just how much God really does love the world. He would do anything to save it, but would we? Would we be willing to sacrifice our lives to save them? Does God expect this of us? Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. Luke 9:23, 24

What are we clinging to so tightly that we wouldn’t give up for Him? There are testimonies in this book that tell of people, despite great fear and trepidation, trading in their old lives of stress and endless accumulation, only to find that He was right there waiting to bless them with something far better than anything they ever had before! The inexpressible and glorious joy that God meant for us to have all along.

I found myself questioning my giving. Do I give sacrificially or out of my excess? Do I give away what I don’t want anyway, and write a check to a charity so I can sleep better at night?  How much does God expect? I always felt so bad for the rich young ruler who comes to Jesus and left with such sadness, but for the first time I was confronted by the fact that there is a bit of the rich young ruler in myself. Maybe much more than I care to admit.

What happens when the church starts to look so much like the world you can no longer tell the two apart? Does the world dislike us? Why should it when there is little or no distinction between us, when the church is seeking and striving after all the same things the world does?

If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. John 15:19

Why would God send His people to a place where sharing the gospel means certain death or imprisonment? Doesn’t He want us safe? What about people who have never heard the gospel? If they have never heard it then won’t they get a “go directly to Heaven pass?” But as I read, I kept thinking of Jesus words…..”I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” John 12:24  I don’t think He was just talking about Himself.

These are some of the questions addressed in the book and I think they are valid questions. The fact that this book was on the New York times bestseller list makes me believe that many in the American church believe that something does needs to change. I have heard and read many testimonies of people who have not been afraid to look into their hearts and ask themselves the hard questions. People who felt the Spirit lay a burden on their heart to make a drastic change, to sacrifice for the good of others. I think of successful author Lisa Samson. After a missions trip, she and her husband sold their luxurious home in the suburbs and moved to the inner city to minister to the poor. She now feels blessed beyond measure.

Having said that, this is not a book meant to indict the rich, but to encourage those who have much to turn around and bless others to the glory of God. It is also not a book that says that you have to sell all you have in order to be saved.

The conclusion of the book left me with a choice and a challenge. I thought about pretending I had never read it because now I feel a response is necessary. I am grateful for it, because there are some things I needed to question. Despite how sobering I sometimes found the book, at the end I experienced something that was totally unexpected, a kind of wild exultant joy. I couldn’t help but be captivated by thinking how it would be to enter into that life of radical faith and see what God could do through little scaredy-cat me.

I leave this book with my faith strengthened and I find comfort in the words of Peter after some of the disciples took off and Jesus asked if he wanted to leave too “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” Peter knew that whatever he had to go through, living without Christ was unthinkable. I am going forward with an open and prayerful heart and I am thankful that David Platt had the courage to write it.

If any of you have read the book I would be interested to see what you thought about it!