Living Life With

“Look! The virgin will conceive a child!
    She will give birth to a son,
and they will call him Immanuel,
    which means ‘God is with us.’” Matthew 1:23 (NLT)

There we sat in the Emergency Room. We had gone to church and as we were leaving my father-in-law started having some problems. We thought he was just over tired. He lived with us so we headed home to let him rest. When we got to the house, it was apparent that it was more than that. In his own strength he could not stand up. So, we loaded back into the car and went to the ER.

As we sat there, I sent a text to the prayer chain and asked for prayer. People started texting prayers and good thoughts immediately. We were comforted by their thoughts. Then about 30 minutes later, some of our friends from church showed up with pizza and a cooler full of snacks!

They realized we had gone straight from church to the ER and had probably not eaten all day so they brought us food. Can I tell you that totally changed our outlook and it warmed our hearts. Our friends looked at our situation and decided to walk through it with us instead of watching us walk through it on our own.

Jesus did the same when he came as a baby. That act of love was Jesus coming to be with us. He came to walk with us, eat with us, hurt with us, face temptation with us and then he died for us. It’s a special kind of love that puts aside what is easier to “live life with”. When Jesus did it, we took notice and because of his involvement, we know we are special to him and to God.

Is there someone you can “live life with” today, this week and especially this holiday season? Do what Jesus did. Come along side someone and walk with them. The ripple effect can be eternal.

Ripe or Rotten?

One basket was filled with fresh, ripe figs, while the other was filled with bad figs that were too rotten to eat. Then the Lord said to me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?” I replied, “Figs, some very good and some very bad, too rotten to eat.” Jeremiah 24:2-3 (NLT)

In the Book of Jeremiah, God showed Jeremiah two baskets of figs. One was filled with rotten figs, the other was filled with fresh, ripe figs. God was going to give Jeremiah a prediction about the figs. What would God do with the good figs and the bad figs?

As it turns out, the people who represented the good figs were taken into captivity and exiled to Babylon. The people who represented the bad figs were left in Jerusalem. Doesn’t make sense does it? You’d think the bad figs would be captured and taken as slaves. But it was the other way around.

Later, in Jeremiah 29, God started reaching out to the folks who were in exile. He said (paraphrased) “Live your lives. Enjoy! Raise families. Build homes. I have plans for you. They are good plans for a great future. Call out to me and I will answer you.”

It kind of feels backward doesn’t it? The people in captivity God is helping. Eventually, they went home. What happened to the people that represented the bad figs? They were destroyed. They were so set in their ways God could not save them.

There is a lesson for us in this story. When things seem like they are out of control and God is not in it, God may actually be using your circumstances to save you. You may feel like you are being held in an impossible situation but God may be keeping you there so you will not be destroyed.

God is always working on behalf of his people. You can’t always never sometimes tell what he is doing and you never know how he is going to work out your circumstances. Trust him.

Feet Makeovers

How beautiful on the mountains
    are the feet of the messenger who brings good news,
the good news of peace and salvation,
    the news that the God of Israel reigns! Isaiah 52:7 (NLT)

How can feet be beautiful? Sure, there are some people who have very elegant looking feet. They are shaped well, no callouses and weird bumps but it’s kind of unusual. We often try to hide our feet or cover them up with fancy shoes or polish.

But the Bible says feet are beautiful. Not just any feet. The feet of the messenger who brings the good news of Jesus. And really, if you think about it, Jesus had the most beautiful feet of all. His feet traveled miles on dusty roads sharing the Good News with people. His feet eventually had a spike driven through them to seal the deal. Those feet that were pierced and bleeding are beautiful.

Are your feet beautiful? Are they running all over your neighborhood or community sharing love and kindness with people? Are they tired and achy because they’ve stood all day helping someone who needed help? Are they sitting next to someone in need as you hold their hand?

How will people ever know about Jesus and how beautiful his feet were if we don’t tell them? Romans 10:14-15 says:

But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them? And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent? That is why the Scriptures say, “How beautiful are the feet of messengers who bring good news!”

I want to have beautiful feet. Not because I polished them and made them acceptable for human eyes but because they are imitating Jesus feet in service.

A Minute In It - The Reason For The Season

A minute in Gods' word will change your life.  Below is the text from Isaiah 53. Take a minute it read it and remember why we celebrate the Christmas season. Jesus came for a reason.

1 Who has believed our message?
    To whom has the Lord revealed his powerful arm?
2 My servant grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot,
    like a root in dry ground.
There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance,
    nothing to attract us to him.
3 He was despised and rejected—
    a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.
We turned our backs on him and looked the other way.
    He was despised, and we did not care.

4 Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;
    it was our sorrows[a] that weighed him down.
And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God,
    a punishment for his own sins!
5 But he was pierced for our rebellion,
    crushed for our sins.
He was beaten so we could be whole.
    He was whipped so we could be healed.
6 All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.
    We have left God’s paths to follow our own.
Yet the Lord laid on him
    the sins of us all.

7 He was oppressed and treated harshly,
    yet he never said a word.
He was led like a lamb to the slaughter.
    And as a sheep is silent before the shearers,
    he did not open his mouth.
8 Unjustly condemned,
    he was led away.[b]
No one cared that he died without descendants,
    that his life was cut short in midstream.[c]
But he was struck down
    for the rebellion of my people.
9 He had done no wrong
    and had never deceived anyone.
But he was buried like a criminal;
    he was put in a rich man’s grave.

10 But it was the Lord’s good plan to crush him
    and cause him grief.
Yet when his life is made an offering for sin,
    he will have many descendants.
He will enjoy a long life,
    and the Lord’s good plan will prosper in his hands.
11 When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish,
    he will be satisfied.
And because of his experience,
    my righteous servant will make it possible
for many to be counted righteous,
    for he will bear all their sins.
12 I will give him the honors of a victorious soldier,
    because he exposed himself to death.
He was counted among the rebels.
    He bore the sins of many and interceded for rebels. Isaiah 53 (NLT)

Fighting Back

Are any of you suffering hardships? You should pray.  James 5:13 (NLT)

I was talking to someone the other day about a project that he was working. He was very frustrated because it seemed like he took two steps forward and one step back. Things seemed harder than they needed to be.

We shared together and prayed about it asking God to bless and to show the path.

As we were leaving each other, I turned around and said “Keep your chin up.” He smiled and said, “When you go into battle you are supposed to keep your chin down.” I laughed and agreed. As I walked toward my car he said “You know, when you bow your head in prayer, you are keeping your chin down too.”

And so it is. When circumstances seem to battle against us and just getting to the next step seems harder than it should be, we have to take up our battle stance. And that stance is prayer. With our head bowed, we give to God what is always his; the battle, the outcome and the victory. And then, we keep walking ready for the fight.

It Was Enough

50 And Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

Mary was about to do the unthinkable. She was about to anoint Jesus feet in the middle of a group of men who would call her out and make her look foolish. They would disparage her and humiliate her. As she walked toward the house where Jesus was, why didn’t she stop and turn around. What kept her focused on the task she knew she needed to do? What made her want to thank Jesus for his forgiveness in her life?

She had not yet witnessed the one act that sealed her forgiveness. The act of Jesus death on the cross. She did not see him bowed in Gethsemane pleading with the Father to provide another way. As Jesus bowed there, crying out to God, truly not wanting to walk the path that was before him, pleading – please take this cup, this suffering that I am about to do, from me. Mary didn’t know that what caused Jesus to surrender was her. I imagine as he knelt there that he saw her face. He saw yours and mine. As he knelt there not wanting to walk the path before him, each and every one of us flashed before him.

 Mary also didn’t know what he would go through on the cross. As he hung there and our sins were being piled onto him, she didn’t see or understand the pain. Not just physical pain, which he surely had, but the separation the sin caused between him and his Father. As Jesus hung there, each and every sin was laid on him. Every single sin each one of us and every single person in the world has ever committed. Jesus didn’t look up in the middle of all that and say “Wait, this one sin that Elaine committed, I can’t take that on. And look, that one sin from Peter, Mary or Sarah, no, I won’t die for those.” He died for it all. The big ones and the little ones. But, Mary didn’t know all that yet.

As the people started talking Jesus said “Do you see this woman?” He didn’t mean physically. He meant her heart. Do you see what she has embraced about me? And then he turned to her and said “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”

Friends, we are not saved because we do good things.  We are not forgiven because we are sorry for the bad things we’ve done. We are forgiven only because of the utterly complete death on the cross.  That’s it.

 Like Mary, we must embrace that. We must have faith that Jesus’ death on the cross was enough. We must live like we believe that we are completely, 100% forgiven.  If we believe that, we too can live our lives in peace. Let’s not let our past sins cause us to miss out on the life of forgiveness and joy God has for us. Let’s leave our mess at the cross knowing because of Jesus death, we are forever forgiven.

More Than Doing The Right Thing

8 Owe nothing to anyone—except for your obligation to love one another. If you love your neighbor, you will fulfill the requirements of God’s law.9 For the commandments say, “You must not commit adultery. You must not murder. You must not steal. You must not covet.” These—and other such commandments—are summed up in this one commandment: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no wrong to others, so love fulfills the requirements of God’s law. Romans 13:8-10 (NLT)

Do no harm. That’s what I think when I hear these verses. What does that mean exactly? If I don’t steal, murder, cheat on my spouse, is that enough? I don’t think so.

When it says love does no wrong to others, it doesn’t mean doing the right thing to the people I love. It means truly loving, beyond my circle. It means doing no harm to anyone. Because God’s love casts a much wider net than my love does.

So, when I think that snarky comment about someone I just met, I need to squash it and not say it out loud. It means when I am about to comment to someone about their friend that I don’t know, I need to zip it. It means when I am asked my opinion, I need to be quiet until I’ve prayed and can offer an opinion that builds up and does not tear down.

God is still growing me in these areas. I am not good at it. But, if I keep talking to him and asking him for help, he will be faithful to continue to change me. He will keep working on me until one day, by his grace I will lean more in that direction than in the direction of my human tendencies.

That’s a promise he gives me that I hold onto.

And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns. Philippians 1:6

A Minute In It - Back And To The Future

A minute in Gods' word will change your life.  These verses are a reminder that life will not always be as we see it now. Because Jesus came and overcame, we will one day live in peace; delivered from the struggles of this world.

1-5 A green Shoot will sprout from Jesse’s stump,
    from his roots a budding Branch.
The life-giving Spirit of God will hover over him,
    the Spirit that brings wisdom and understanding,
The Spirit that gives direction and builds strength,
    the Spirit that instills knowledge and Fear-of-God.
Fear-of-God
    will be all his joy and delight.
He won’t judge by appearances,
    won’t decide on the basis of hearsay.
He’ll judge the needy by what is right,
    render decisions on earth’s poor with justice.
His words will bring everyone to awed attention.
    A mere breath from his lips will topple the wicked.
Each morning he’ll pull on sturdy work clothes and boots,
    and build righteousness and faithfulness in the land.

6-9 The wolf will romp with the lamb,
    the leopard sleep with the kid.
Calf and lion will eat from the same trough,
    and a little child will tend them.
Cow and bear will graze the same pasture,
    their calves and cubs grow up together,
    and the lion eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child will crawl over rattlesnake dens,
    the toddler stick his hand down the hole of a serpent.
Neither animal nor human will hurt or kill
    on my holy mountain.
The whole earth will be brimming with knowing God-Alive,
    a living knowledge of God ocean-deep, ocean-wide.
Isaiah 11:1-9 (MSG)