New life in Christ

What does it mean to follow Jesus?

“In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.” Luke 14:33
Consider the cost when Christians ignore Jesus’ commands to sell their possessions and give to the poor and instead choose to spend their resources on better comforts, larger homes, nicer cars, and more stuff. Consider the cost when these Christians gather in churches and choose to spend millions of dollars on nice buildings to drive up to, cushioned chairs to sit in, and endless programs to enjoy for themselves. Consider the cost for the starving multitudes who sit outside the gates of contemporary Christian affluence.
David Platt, “Radical” Taking back your faith from the American Dream
I started reading this book last night, and all other books immediately went on hold. In the first Chapter we get an eye-opening glimpse into the underground church in Asia, where believers are indeed losing all for the sake of following Christ. In this book, David Platt raises a challenge to the American church today. He asks: “Do you and I believe Him enough to obey him and to follow him wherever he leads, even when the crowds in our culture–and maybe in our churches–turn the other way?”
This book has already driven me back, with a prayerful heart, to the words of Jesus, and what it really means to “pick up my cross” and follow Him. I have a feeling this will be an interesting journey and maybe a troubling one as well…..

The Miracle after the Silence……

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. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” Luke 1:26-28

Four hundred years God has been silent……no new prophets echoing through the Temple Courts…..no help for Israel, only continual oppression from powerful nations around them. It must have seemed like the silence was mocking all their hopes for the future. How many years they had prayed, and waited for God to answer. A sign, any little flicker of hope, anything to grasp on to. And still, they heard nothing. But they read the words, they clung to belief. They held out. They held on.  A whisper of hope was all they had, and yet it was enough.

Then one day things started to happen…….Zechariah going into the temple one way, and coming out unable to speak, stunned at what he heard, saw. “Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John. He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth,” Luke 1:11-14

He came out of the temple not able to speak, since he doubted what the Angel had said…….I wonder, in our modern reality-TV laden, overstimulated society……if Gabriel appeared would anyone notice? Would we even be able to hear him?
When you consider all these miraculous events………A virgin bearing God’s Son, a baby born filled with the Holy Spirit at birth (John), Zechariah struck dumb and they able to speak on the day of John’s birth…..is it any less of a miracle that we believe all these things and others don’t? That is what I pondered and it greatly humbled me this morning.
Mary said yes……and it cost her, Elizabeth and Zechariah said yes and it cost them, Jesus said yes and it cost Him. John the Baptist said yes, and it cost him.Yet they were also greatly rewarded. What an unspeakable gift……to be entrusted with this most precious gift, this knowledge, this truth. God’s own Spirit! The message to Mary from Gabriel is to us too, if we believe what Jesus said and have accepted Him into our lives. “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” 
He is with us!……..We have this hope……the wait is over. He has come! Whatever you are going through, I pray that today you find strength and hope in this gift that God has so freely given us. Rejoice with me today in this good news which shall be for all people! Pray, and be ready to give an answer for the hope that is in you…..so many need Him today.

New every morning……

The Wilderness holds answers to more questions than we have learned to ask…….Nancy Newhall

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.”
The Lord is good to those who wait for him,
to the soul who seeks him.
It is good that one should wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord. Lamentations 3:21-26

On my way to work I asked the Lord what message He would have me bring today……I have had a few thoughts the last few days, things I wanted to blog about, but work has been very busy and I haven’t been able to get the time. As I was praying, I felt the Spirit place this thought on my heart and then push it to the front as I was driving.  It stayed there and didn’t leave, and I knew it was what the Lord gave me for this day. He kept saying to me……..”New every morning.”

In spite of every circumstance we go through on a day to day basis…….He always refreshes us with little joys each morning. Somehow we get strength to start all over again. The Christian life is filled with newness….because it is filled with Christ and He never gets old!  Everything in the world gets old, jobs, drinking, money, stuff, partying, drugs, even traveling gets old after awhile and you just want to stay home! Everything in this world gets old, except for Christ. He brings us that new life that He described as living water…..

I felt it this morning and it surprised me again! I put the praise songs on and started singing a bit and before I knew it, I felt that sweet refresing that only comes from the Holy Spirit. I don’t know why it catches me by surprise but it always does and it shouldn’t by now. I think that God likes to give us those gifts when we are least expecting them sometimes. Just like you love to surprise your kids with little gifts…..

There are things we can do to keep that grace water flowing, I find…… Listening to good praise music, staying in the Word, fellowshiping with other believers, all these things keep that wellspring of water flowing freely. And of course, sometimes God just comes in quietly and fills us with grace and peace when we least expect it too.

It is interesting when you read the verses in Lamentations all around the above verses. They are pretty bleak! But then this verse comes in……exactly what I was feeling this morning.

There are times when we feel as dry as the desert, but God has promised we will not stay that way……
that is a great hope for me today…..I praise His name!

What is faith?

Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God; ~Elizabeth Barrett Browning

My definition of faith: “Faith is the absolute certainty that what we believe will come to pass.”

Websters definition of faith: b (1) : firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2) : complete trust

Ever tried to explain your faith to someone? It is like explaining the concept of eternity. Our finite minds just can’t get a grip on it. It is a good exercise though to think about why you believe a certain way and how you came to those beliefs.  Trying to articulate it is not easy. People say, “How can you be so sure?” Here are a few reasons why I have faith in God.

God has proven Himself over and over through circumstances and changes in me and other people…He is faithful, even when I am not.

Because the Bible says so and I believe the Bible to be God’s inspired word. “So faith comes from hearing, that is, hearing the Good News about Christ.” Romans 19:17 NLT 

Through answered prayer and miracles that can be explained no other way.

Because of everything I see in the world around me.  

The Holy Spirit within me verifies that it is true.

“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” John 16:13

Many people take issue with the fact that Christians seem so dogmatic in their beliefs, that we refuse to entertain the possibility that we may be wrong. The question then becomes, why would I want to devote my whole life to a belief system that I really wasn’t sure of? 

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” Hebrews 11:11

If we have evidence of things not seen, that would mean that there is evidence that we can see, hear and touch. Something that is tangible. What it takes is opening up our hearts as well as our eyes.  I came to the conclusion that the odds of all of this just happening on its own were a statistical  impossibility.

And I had praying parents……

To me, this question of faith is fascinating. I found myself going down a rabbit-trail that wouldn’t end. I couldn’t find a place to end this post, I kept thinking of more verses, more questions. The simplest way to put it is, I once was lost but now as found, was blind but now I see!

God writes the gospel not in the Bible alone, but on trees and flowers and clouds and stars. ~Martin Luther

Photo Mark Wilson, Globe Photo

Remembering our Brokenness

“I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:14
Looking back is good sometimes. It reminds us of all that God has brought us through and I think it gives us the courage to keep walking. Remembering where we came from and what God has done for us is humbling. We remember the victories, the parts of us that were mended along the way, all the joys strewn along the path. We collect them like shining treasures, even the heartaches, because He got us through those too.
I broke a figurine the other day when I was dusting a little over-zealously. I heard a sickening thud and distinctly heard pieces break off. I was afraid to look. I already knew what it was, the little angel that I bought my roommate for her Birthday. “Don’t worry, she wasn’t expensive,” I said, “I wanted to go back to that store anyway. I’ll buy you a new one.”
“I don’t want a new one,” she said. “I will glue her back together.” She gathered the pieces and put them carefully on the shelf in her room. I was still insisting on buying her a new one, when she looked at me pointedly and said softly, “It means more knowing that someone loves her enough to put her back together.”
I think when she said that she was thinking of how God puts us all back together, but especially how He put her back together. She was remembering when she was broken. 
Her life was changed one morning in an instant when a truck driver who was thinking of too many other things pulled in front of her and broadsided the cement mixer she was driving. Yes, I said cement mixer. She has never been afraid to tackle anything. She remembers broken glass, and being pulled out of the truck by two good samaritans who happened to be eating their lunch close by and saw the whole thing. She remembers spending six long months in a body cast. Today she tells anyone who will listen that it was the best thing that ever happened to her. That it saved her life.
She fought through the pain of therapy and made a full recovery ahead of time. Then she moved to a strange town, my hometown, and ended up getting a job where I worked. At that time I was still grieving over the death of my husband but I clung to my faith in God and I guess she was watching me, because she started asking me questions about the God I worshipped. “How can you still be so positive?” she would say. “Because of everything He has done for me,” I said back.
About a year or two later, the woman who did everything on her own in life because there was no one to do it for her, met Jesus and was baptised in a river with a crowd of witnesses and me, and she has never been the same since.
 She has held that gratefulness fresh like a flower, close to her heart ever since. She remembers being broken. I think that is why she has an unquenchable desire to fix people, things, situations. That is her gift. She is a joy to be around and a strong witness for Jesus by how she lives her everyday life. She is the first to offer help to a neighbor, to sacrifice her time, to go out of her way, all
Because she remembers who healed her…..and who keeps healing her still.
She is a fixer, like He is a fixer. And we are all broken angels sitting on a shelf, just waiting to be picked up and glued back together if we will let Him. As He repairs us, we help to repair others……
Even Jesus was broken so that we could be healed of our brokenness…….”so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.” Hebrews 9:28

The Waiting Game

“The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach – waiting for a gift from the sea.”
Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Much of life is spent waiting…….Waiting for something to end or something to start. We have all spent hours waiting in hospital rooms. Hoping for good news…..being prepared for the worst. In the case of old age or terminal illness, everything rests on the edge of one moment. One such moment was related to me yesterday. A close family friend who is also a Pastor was telling my Mom about waiting in the hospital room for his Mother-in-law to pass on.

Much had led up to this moment. Pastor Greg and his wife Ann, who several years ago had a bad stroke, had been caring for both of her parents. Due to Ann’s stroke the majority of the burden fell on Greg and it has been taxing to say the least.

Ann’s parents went to church, but didn’t want to hear anything about having a personal relationship with God. Greg had tried to talk to them before about spiritual things but they had made it clear that was “okay for Greg and Ann”, but not how they believed.” It was a mutual understanding and they got along fine, that was just how things were.

It was about 4 in the morning and Greg was alone in the room and beyond exhausted. Ann had gone home long before. It was just he and his Mother-in-law who looked like she was already gone from this world. Greg had His Bible and was alternately praying and dosing off. He heard a rustling noise coming from the bed and looked over. She was sitting straight up in bed! In Greg’s own words, “It was like a corpse sitting up!” Then she lay back down.

Awhile later he heard the rustling again……again, she was bolt upright in bed. Now he had been fervently praying that he would get another opportunity to talk with her, so he opened his Bible to the book of John. She lay back down again.

Once more the rustling……..once more she was sitting up and even looked somewhat coherent. He decided this may be his last opportunity, so he drew the chair to the side of the bed. To make a very long story short, they talked, he read from the book of John…..”I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. John 5:24,25

They continued talking and he kept reading from John, explaining salvation and what it means. When he knew that she understood, he asked her if that would be something she would like to do, accept Jesus as savior. She said yes. Shortly thereafter, her waiting was over. She had passed from this life to the next.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. John 1:12

At her memorial, the Pastor asked Greg to speak. Since this was their own Pastor, Greg was somewhat taken aback. What would he say? The Father-in-law then piped up and said, “Why don’t you tell them what happened in the hospital room?” Greg was surprised by this, but he did tell the story, word for word, at the funeral. He told my Mom that you could have heard a pin drop while he was telling the story…..

Living Psalms

A psalm of Asaph. The Mighty One, God, the LORD, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to the place where it sets. Psalm 50:1

Ever felt like a living Psalm of praise? When prayer turns to praise that’s what happens. I found myself answering a question this morning that I didn’t even realize I was asking…..:..”What does having a relationship with a living God mean to you?” This is how I would explain it. It is like going along with life and seeing things one way….thinking one way, living one way. Then, in one spectacular moment, or maybe years of little moments put together, someone comes along and throws the switch on a floodlight. You see things you never thought were there.

The backdrop of your life is lit from behind with Someone whom you know to be the source of all that light.
Your perspective on life, everything you thought you knew…….changed in an instant. Magnified. Every moment becomes a miracle and everything is suddenly colored with meaning. You see the sweep of God’s Arm in every spectacular move of nature, you suddenly hear the symphony that has been playing all along. You realize there is a plan to it all, and you are part of it, were wanted, loved into being……not necessarily by your earthly parents, but by your Creator parent, the One who set the whole thing into motion. The One who keeps it all going.

You are struck with amazement that this is a God who wants to know you personally. It is a bit like falling in love, but better because this love will last forever.

You are lifted to the heights of Heaven and you want to tell everyone……You keep walking down the road but now the road looks different. Now you are aware that there is a God who walks beside you. You feel eternity coursing through your veins. You suddenly know how it feels to pass from death to life.

Here is the miracle. You go through the normal sorrows and trials and frustrations of life and you realize He is still there, He hasn’t left. As you walk further down the path, you realize that sometimes He allows extremely painful things into your life, and you don’t know why. Sometimes you cry out and He is big enough to handle that. For he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. Psalm 103:14 He knows better than anyone what we are made of. And He also knows that sometimes we need to grow. Growing doesn’t happen without pruning……..

The miracle continues when we find ourselves praising in the midst of the pruning sometimes, hard as it is. We make it through. We start to see our weakness as His strength. We come to know that God allows certain things in our lives so we can minister to others going through the same thing.

We hold joy like treasure bursting within us. He has made our bodies His sanctuary and we are breathless with thanksgiving at such undeserved Grace. We celebrate the manger and the empty tomb every day. We want to tell everybody, but we don’t and we are not sure why, but it leaks because it simply has to. We are living sparks of His greater light but we know we are far from perfect…….We praise Him because He has brought us through so much and we know that He will be there waiting at our last breath.

Out of this world and into the next…….finally Home.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. John 3:16,17

The Cup that Overflows

Ever felt like the whole earth is praising with you? Welling up and overflowing like a river that has spilled its banks; in the wellspring of your soul you echo His words, “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” That was me yesterday. It was the victory lap at the end of the week, Saturday, my last day of the workweek. Saturdays are usually that way. I get up and there is no traffic, the annoying hum is absent and all is silent, peaceful. I could have driven to work on the fumes of praise alone….He has carried me through another week. I had myself a little victory dance in the car, and it carried me all the way through the doors. It lasted all day!

Like David, I felt my cup overflowing, the cup of praise to a God that has done everything for me, is with me at all times, and at all times, “His praise shall continually be in my mouth,” no matter what I am going through, because He is worthy to be praised! David understood that.  His life wasn’t easy at times, but he knew where He could find refuge and strength, and he knew how to praise God! David did his own victory dance.

“David, wearing a linen ephod, danced before the Lord with all his might, while he and the entire house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouts and the sound of trumpets.” 2 Samuel 6:14

Can’t you just see him dancing for joy? I understand that craziness……sometimes I want to jump up and down on a street corner and call out, “Do you know what Jesus has done for me? What He can do for you, if you just let Him?”

I used to see a man on the way to church. The locals call him “Izzy.” He is somebody you can look at and one glance will easily render a judgement of “crazy.” He stands on a street corner with his finger pointing up at the sky, proclaiming Jesus to anyone who will hear. My church even did a segment on him once. When he was interviewed, he came off pretty rational, but it’s tough to get passed his exterior. Long beard, unkempt, pushing a shopping cart, he looks like he may have been sleeping on a bench somewhere. 

Some of what he says is not rational at all, but if you pay attention and listen for a moment you will realize the part that is rational is full of praise to God!

Sometimes I wonder, who is the crazy one? We are the ones who have received the Good News, the best news ever to reach mankind, how can we keep from shouting aloud? All of creation sings its praise to their maker. It’s only natural we do the same.

Izzy does.

Need a touch today?


“A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.”

If I just touch His clothes….
Jesus knew that someone had touched Him specifically for healing. This wasn’t just someone in the crowd jostling against Him. This was someone who had touched Him in faith. Someone who took a risk, someone who had tried everything, and now was ready to try Jesus.

Ever feel like that? I think about this woman and know that she was shunned from her community. If she was bleeding she was ceremonially unclean and therefore could not join in to any aspect of life in her community. I imagine her hiding in the crowd, pushing her way through, and finally getting a glimpse of the back of his hem dragging the ground. Almost there….

At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”
“You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ”

She probably just wanted to disappear from the crowd but Jesus wanted to make sure that she was recognized. He wanted to make contact with her, see her face, let her know that He appreciated her act of faith…

But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

She didn’t seek Jesus out because he was a good teacher, a good role model, a person with high moral standards, or a charismatic preacher, she sought Him out because she believed that He was the one person who could do what nobody else had been able to do for her. Heal her. What she found was the One who could not only heal her body, but her soul as well.

What we believe about Jesus can make all the difference in life here and now and for all eternity…….

Scripture selections taken from Mark 5

Redemption and Conversion


“Oswald Chambers said that conversion is a human act — turning away from sin, and a sinful lifestyle. Redemption, however, is something that is received. God does it for us. He wrote that too many so-called Christians have not gotten beyond conversion — they have joined a church, and given up some old habits, but they have not yet received anything from God, and are satisfied as they are.

Conversion is a gift and an achievement. It is the act of a moment and the work of a lifetime. You cannot attain salvation by disciplines—it is the gift of God. But you cannot retain it without disciplines. If you try to attain salvation by disciplines, you will be trying to discipline an unsurrendered self. You will be sitting on a lid. The result will be tenseness instead of trust. “You will wrestle instead of nestle.” While salvation cannot be attained by discipline around an unsurrendered self, nevertheless when the self is surrendered to Christ and a new center formed, then you can discipline your life around that new center—Christ. Discipline is the fruit of conversion—not the root.” E. Stanley Jones

A further illustration of God’s love and grace is demonstrated by the fact that we can’t even willfully turn from sin and turn to Christ without God’s initiation, so the whole thing is one huge act of Grace from start to finish…..”No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.” John 6:44
To watch the conversion and redemption process in someones life is to witness a true miracle of our modern day. When you begin to see changes in your own life that you know deep down could only come with the help of God, that’s a miracle. When you look back at where you started and see how far you have come….that’s Gods Grace. When you realize how far you still have to go, that’s Grace again. Jesus did the hard part, but now we follow in His steps, however haltingly, yet we have the assurance of victory at the end of the race.

“So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Romans 7:21-25