Freedom

Born to give us second birth

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Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

I wrestle with my flesh on many occasions throughout the day…….when I work it’s usually during my commute. From the time we’re born, we enter this battle, this war. The body wants to sit on the couch and not trudge down to the treadmill, or it’s too cold to walk. I can usually think up one excuse after another. The spirit wants to fill itself up with everything under the sun, except for what God wants.

He knew we could never fulfill His perfect requirements of Holiness. But there is One who could. And did.

For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Romans 8:1-8

Many people are rushing out to buy lottery tickets right now. I can’t say I blame them. I am tempted to myself. Despite the fact that the Bible says not to chase after riches, something in me thinks that my life would be much better and less stressful if I could pay everything off and do the same for my family. To be able to leave the stress of my job far behind. But the truth is, what I value most in my life is something money can’t ever buy.

I already have the best gift……the only gift that matters in this life, because that gift has bought me eternal life with Him in the next. While this life is passing away like a vapor, that life stretches ahead further than my eye can see.

What more could I possibly want than what God has already given me? Nothing.

I am rich beyond counting, beyond measuring. Because He was born for my sacrifice. Yours, mine……ours. He is my riches. My only desire. It’s why He was born. It’s what I celebrate each and every day.

Long after Christmas is all packed away.

 

 

 

On stumbling

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 Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

Jude 1: 24,25

And by this we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him.  For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God. And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight. And this is His commandment: that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as He gave us commandment.

1 John 3:19:23

It is no surprise to God that there will be times when we fall. Some days feel like one fall after another, but these verses bring me great hope today. I think sometimes we mistake weaknesses for sin. I have come to be thankful for those “thorn’s in my flesh,” such as the Apostle Paul described, for they bring me closer to the Lord and allow me to see the power of the cross all over again.

Those things that I used to resent, I now count as God’s blessings because they force me to rely on Him. It’s the process of turning those things over to him which causes us to grow; that gives God His rightful place on the throne of our hearts.

Sometimes the turning it over becomes the battle of our lives. The battle of our days.

All those things we once thought were so overwhelming lose their power the second we give them to the One who has the power to change them. Some things He does heal, some things He does take away, but some things he leaves us as reminders of who we need to trust. And how He loves us. Better to have a little weakness and boast in what God can do, as opposed to thinking we have none and boasting in ourselves.

Today I rejoice in God my Savior, for all He is, for all He’s done, and for all He continues to do in my life.

Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself! Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me.  And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast  about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. 2 Corinthians 12:7-9

What about you? Is there something you are struggling with today? Leave a request in the comments and I would be happy to pray for you……

photo credit: awrose via flickr, creative commons: some rights reserved.

The path to peace

My future belongs to Him

“No one is righteous—
    not even one.
No one is truly wise;
    no one is seeking God.
All have turned away;
    all have become useless.
No one does good,
    not a single one.”
“Their talk is foul, like the stench from an open grave.
    Their tongues are filled with lies.”
“Snake venom drips from their lips.”
 “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”
“They rush to commit murder.
Destruction and misery always follow them.
They don’t know where to find peace.”
“They have no fear of God at all.”

Romans 3:11-18

We watched the first installment of the new series, “The Blacklist” last night starring James Spader. Well, a few parts I watched through my fingers because I was afraid of what I’d see. “What happened to the bad guy?” I asked E. “I don’t know,” she said, “I was afraid to watch, I was sure the husband was going to get killed.”  I guess we’ll never know. Needless to say, it was a scene we were not expecting and totally unprepared for.

I was almost ready for bed when I started watching it, but wide awake by the time the show was over.

All over the news, all over the world there is violence. You don’t have to look far. And cursing has become the norm, even for kids. They hear it from their parents. I compare the world now to the one I grew up in. A mistake I know. It’s something I thought I would never do and now I am. It’s hard not to, when you see such a marked difference, when you see how things have changed.

One thing I never had a moment of at any of my school campuses was real fear. All the way from Kindergarten through High School. Well, maybe I was a little afraid of BJ, she was one of the tough girls. And Steven Weigum. He was a punk. With Steven, you worked hard to be invisible. I was good at it, except for the one time I forgot to wear green on St. Patrick’s day.

From Grammar school all the way to Junior High, I heard maybe one parent say the “F’ word and I was shocked. Actually I didn’t even hear them say it, the daughter said she overheard her Mom say it…….once.

I feel sad for kids today. In many ways, they live in a callous and harsh world. Images of violence fills their culture through television, movies, video games and even music. Fear is part and parcel of their everyday world at school since all the school shootings started. Even us adults have to work hard to deprogram our minds from what we see and hear all day, on the news, at work. It would be easy to lose heart, to lose hope. To despair even.

It’s why I try to spend time alone with God the very first part of my day and saturate myself with His words. Sometimes I spend an hour, sometimes it’s 20 minutes, it’s just Him and me getting back to ground zero. Giving my mind and heart over to Him gets me back on track, brings me back home. It takes all that negative the world gives out and replaces it with what’s good.

It is an awesome thing to think we can have an open session with the God of the Universe anytime we want it. In fact, He seeks it…….delights in it. May it never get old for me.

It’s easy to think I’m a pretty good person when I watch a show like we watched last night where really bad guys are plotting to wreak havoc on the world, until I realize that in the verses above, the Apostle Paul is talking about all of us without Jesus.

And when I call that person “a name” for cutting me off on the freeway? I realize there is less distance between me and those character references in the book of Romans than I thought.

He reminds me of how my pitiful little rags of righteousness looked before they were dipped in His fountain.

It’s humbling, yes it is. But it’s good.

If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:8,9

When you’re nursing a hurt

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You’re walking around in your day minding your own business. Maybe it’s even a good day and you have had some things happen that can only be described as a “God touching you on the shoulder” moment. Something happened that you just know was God arranged.

Basking in the glow of that light you can almost still feel warming your shoulders,  you are blindsided by something you never saw coming. Oh how it hurts, I know, I have been there. I have asked the questions right along with you:

Why me, why this, why now? And in the silence, the hurt you find yourself in the middle of searches for a safe place to go.

It feels like you have been through enough already. Didn’t all those tears you cried in the dark of night, didn’t those add up to something? David’s couch swam with tears too, even he wasn’t exempt, but somehow that doesn’t make right now any better.

When the wound is raw, it is tempting to ignore that good thing that happened in the wake of the pain that threatens to swallow it up. You’re not sure whether to sit in a corner and lick your wounds, or pour it out to anyone who will listen. And though it’s tempting to dump out hurtful words to the one who hurt you, don’t do it.

Because wounding them doesn’t take your own away, it only multiplies your own pain.

But don’t you hear me God?  I’m your child. The injustice of it all. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right, but it happened. And now?

There is something you need to do. You need to let Him be your justice. He can’t work on anyone else’s heart unless you release yours. You be amazed what happens once you do this. Our God is so big and generous that He not only wants to heal you, He wants to heal that other person too.

And when the Bible says that He binds up the brokenhearted? Friend, that is for right now, not some vague time in the hereafter, it is here…..now…….as well as after.

Who doesn’t have pain? Who doesn’t have sorrow. This is a universal fact. What follows that there can only be a universal answer:

It’s found in the person of Jesus. He is the only one who can actually do something about it. In fact, He already did. That dead old thing was wadded up, crumpled in a ball and tossed into the fire long ago.

This is what we can know as believers. He can meet that ache right this moment by the power of the Holy Spirit who is your comforter. Right now……He can reach in and put His hand into your heart where it stings the most. Don’t doubt that He sees you.

He sees your every effort to focus on the positive, to keep moving forward even when it hurts. And He will reward it.

He had to do that once, you know.  And with you in mind, He did it.

He could never forget you. You are in His thoughts day and night.

And there’s nothing that happens to you or to me that’s too big for Him to handle. That is the hope I hold out to you today. The world needs love, but more than love it needs hope.

If I could reach behind those prison walls……

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“This is what God the Lord says—
the Creator of the heavens, who stretches them out,
who spreads out the earth with all that springs from it,
who gives breath to its people,
and life to those who walk on it:
 “I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness;
I will take hold of your hand.
I will keep you and will make you
to be a covenant for the people
and a light for the Gentiles,
to open eyes that are blind,
    to free captives from prison
    and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.”

Isaiah 42:6,7

I don’t know what you did to get you where you are, in prison or jail. And it really doesn’t matter. I’m not here to debate your guilt or innocence today. Just share hope. I am here to tell you that the playing field is equal at the foot of the cross. That, my friends is good news. It’s the good news the early Church was so excited about. And it’s what I am excited about today. You’re in good company. Just about every hero of the Bible was in prison at one time or another. Back then, being a believer got you prison or death. In some parts of the world it still does.

They felt the weight of the iron chains and they heard the same slam of those iron bars. I never have and I never want to. But I want to tell you that if you have heard them, and that’s where you are right now, hope is not out of your grasp.

You might have thought it was over when you entered that cell. And let me tell you, most people will applaud the fact that you are there. They might even want you there for good or dead. And if you have done something to deserve it, then I don’t feel bad you are there either. But I do feel very bad about the prison your soul is in if you don’t know Christ.

But I do feel bad for your eternal state if you have never felt the love His redemption brings.

All is not lost. The hope that the early church had can be yours too. None of us is too far out of the reach of His love. His love is like the sun, it’s everywhere. The hope that modern-day believers have even as they are facing prison or death in China, In Indonesia, and many other parts of the world can be yours too. They have hope because burning in their hearts is the knowledge that they know this prison is temporary. They have something worth sharing. And they won’t stop, even it means loss of their physical freedom here on earth.

You say, well I don’t want to be here at all. I want to be out there. I want to be free. There is only one person who can truly make us free.

Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. Romans 8:1,2

But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. Romans 8:11

Listen, there are all kinds of prisons in this world, prisons of illness, prisons in our minds, prisons of addiction. Everyday I see people walking around in the free light of day, imprisoned. I can see it in their faces, they have no hope. Jesus saw it too and moved with compassion, He said, “they are like sheep without a shepherd.”

But I am here to tell you that the most dangerous prison in the world is the one you don’t know you’re in. You can’t ignore yours, they can. I can.

There are many people living the good life, flying here and there, surrounding themselves with the best this life has to offer. And you might want what they have, sometimes I  do too, but don’t. Their prison might look a lot better than the one you’re in, but the bars are just as solid. And if they have never taken that step of faith that God requires, they need deliverance just as much as you.

I am not saying prison is easy or admirable, or good. I am sure it’s terrible.

But much more terrible is the eternal sentence we face without Jesus’ pardon. It’s something we all have to decide.

My prayers are with you. My hope is that you will listen to the people who come in with the Good Word. Don’t close your ears. Don’t scoff. Don’t make others feel weak if they go to those meetings. I know they have them there.

It’s freedom they’ve found.

And you can find it too.

Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts. Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will freely pardon. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Rejoicing in my freedom today.

Photo credit flickr: Some rights reserved, by Janrito Karamazov

Not just another day…….and thank you Mrs. Evans.

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As I raised my flag today in the half-light of the morning that is 4:15, I glanced up at the sliver moon and the sky which was still scattered with stars and as always on this day, I was thankful. And my gratitude, as always, was overshadowed by the sense of sad remembrance that others had died for my freedom.

All through our history the flag is tinged with blood and it’s something I don’t take lightly.

Others have paid. Most recently, it was 19 young men who probably never thought they would give their lives for the sake of keeping a town and its people safe that day. But they knew they might. They might have thought it was just another work day. And every day people do this…..our military, our police, our firefighters, and everyday they don’t get recognized enough.

As I drove to work I listened to a John Philip Sousa medley and I sang the Star Spangled Banner at the top of my lungs. It wasn’t easy because it was stuck in with other songs and it was fast. But my heart was there. As I sang, I remembered learning every single patriotic song under the direction of Mrs. Evans, my first grade teacher. We put on a concert where we sang them all…..out of tune and loudly. And the parents loved it.

I think one of my favorites was “You’re a grand old flag.” I wonder how many kids today even know it? I remember Cindy Yeaman singing in my ear. Her mother must have told her to sing loud so she could hear her, boy did she.

Thank you Mrs. Evans,  for I think of you every patriotic holiday that comes around.

Even though I have to work today and have worked many Independence Days over the years, it will never be just like any other day. I may do the same tasks, go through the same motions, but my heart rejoices in the freedom others paid for.

More than anything else, I remember the greater freedom bought with Holy blood on a cross. A God who loved so much that He gave until it hurt. And while soldiers, police officers, firefighters and others in public service continue to give all to save some, and that is what we remember today; God came so that He could save all.

“The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” 2 Peter 3:9

That’s the greater freedom I will celebrate.

And as I do, I will snatch quiet moments to pray for the families of those 19 men who died, and our soldiers still fighting many different kinds of battles, some of which start after they come back home.

Tonight, as I roll in the driveway full of the thankfulness of being home, of having a home, I will pray for the ones who just lost theirs, and much more. As I get ready to celebrate by eating special food and watching  fireworks from the high school light up the sky, I will also think about how I was bought with a price by a God who loves me.

And give thanks again.

Because even though I had to work, it wasn’t  just an ordinary day.

And really, what day is?

 Photo credit: AP/Julie Jacobson, 19 red roses honoring the fallen firefighters

 

Not just for picnics

 

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I’m a sucker for anything military. Let me hear a few strains of Stars and Stripes Forever played by a really good marching band and it’s an instant lump in my throat. Present the colors while playing taps and that’s it, kleenex time. The fact that someone would willingly put their life on the line for my freedom and not even hesitate to do so instills in me a sense of gratitude I can never properly express.

My Mom and Dad had a part that. She told me stories of when she was a young girl during WWII and my Uncle enlisted. She told me how they had always bickered and fought just like any siblings growing up, but when he got on the train to leave for boot camp and they thought they might never see him again it was a whole other story.  Everyone was crying their eyes out. She never forgot that. Thankfully, he did come back.

She told me when the young soldiers came through town on the train, she and my Aunt would go out behind the shoe store where they worked and wave to all the boys. Their boss never minded. During shoe rationing time you could only get shoes on Thursdays. My Mom says every week they ran out of certain sizes and they had to dodge flying shoes from irate customers.

Elaine had an Uncle who was shot down and spent time in a concentration camp for years. When he came back, she said he could never seem to get enough food. To watch him eat was to watch someone with a true appreciation for it. He never forgot starving.

It is never very far from my mind that each day there are young men and women, vets who are coming home without arms, legs, hands, feet. For me and my freedom. And they do this without hesitation. How can I ever thank them enough for that?

Tomorrow the first part of my day will be spent in church, thanking God for His ultimate sacrifice, of another Son who went willingly to give His life for the freedom of my soul.

The second part will be spent at the Ballpark where I will help Elaine celebrate her Birthday watching the Diamondbacks play ball and eat a hotdog. I will take part in an American tradition that goes back a long ways. The flag will be waving, and someone will throw out the first pitch, and there may even be a fly over.

I will sing God Bless America and Take Me Out to the Ballgame, and I will feel like a true American. And I will tear up sometime during all that.

In my heart I will give thanks for those who serve in all areas, military, missions, outreach. Committing themselves to the cause of freedom while they lose theirs.

If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it. Matthew 10:39