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)

Liberation

Faith is the assurance of things you have hoped for, the absolute conviction that there are realities you’ve never seen. Hebrews 11:1 (VOICE)

In the Bible, Jesus tells people that their faith has saved them. In the story of the woman who anointed Jesus feet, he tells her that her faith has liberated her. (Luke 7:50 VOICE)

We look at the level in which we believe something and we call that faith. And it is but what happens when what we are believing isn’t happening? What happens when God isn’t showing up the way we want him to? Do we still have faith?

Do we still believe that God is in the middle of it when it gets really, really hard? Do we stretch our faith to believe that no matter what we see happening around us, God is in control of it and it will be better than what we think or want? Do we have faith even if we never, ever see what we are praying for come to pass?

Can I challenge us a little? Do you think God wants to grow our faith? Do you think things happen to stretch us so that faith truly becomes about what we cannot comprehend? Faith is more than what we can see right now. It’s beyond that; it is believing in things that are so far out of our reach that we can’t imagine it.

And more importantly, faith is about who we believe in. Everything else is non-consequential. You see, there will always be trials and pain. But beyond that, there is Jesus. And he loves us. If we grab hold of Jesus and hold on to what we know about him no matter what is happening, that is faith. It is the kind of faith that says “I don’t know why things are going this way but, I know you. I trust you. And I will believe in your goodness more than I believe in my circumstances.”

And that is where the liberation comes in.

If We Believe

You are blessed because you believed that the Lord would do what he said. Luke 1:45 (NLT)

When the Angel told Mary that she was going to miraculously conceive, it would have been really easy for her to say “That’s impossible. I know that won’t happen.” No one would have thought it strange that she discounted it. No one would have blamed her for walking away from that conversation and saying “No thank you. That is physically impossible.”

But Mary didn’t do that. She believed that God would do what God said and she walked into the unexpected. She embraced a new reality.

In Luke 2, there are more examples of people embracing what God told them.

First, the Shepherds. When the Angels showed up and said the Messiah, a Savior, was born but he’s lying in a manger, it would have been easy for the Shepherds to say “That’s not the way it is supposed to be done. If he’s our King, he can’t be born in a manger.” But they didn’t. They went to look for him. They believed and they acted on that belief.

Simeon did the same. The Holy Spirit told him he would not die until he saw the Messiah. So he sat at home and waited for God to bring the Messiah to him. No! He was in the Temple looking for what God had revealed.

Anna, the prophet, did the same. She was in the temple constantly; praying and fasting looking for the Messiah. She was waiting expectantly for what God said would happen.

When the Holy Spirit speaks, how reluctant are we to follow that leading even when it seems out of the realm of our possibilities? Do we follow up on the promptings so God can lead us to his plan and purpose? Or, do we easily discount what we are told as impossible? Is it possible that we don’t see as many miracles as we could because we are looking in the realm of our possibilities and not God’s?

For nothing will be impossible with God. Luke 1:37 (ESV)

Stop Everything!

Jesus realized at once that healing power had gone out from him, so he turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my robe?” Mark 5:30 (NLT)

Jesus was surrounded by throngs of people. The definition of a throng is a large, densely packed crowd of people. They were everywhere. You probably couldn’t move much and if the crowd moved, I bet you would move with them by default.

One of the people in the crowd was Jairus. He was a leader at the local synagogue so probably pretty important. He came and pleaded with Jesus for help. He could. He was important. I guess he felt comfortable going to Jesus and asking. Jesus started to walk with him and the crowd, of course, was following.

There was a woman in the crowd that wasn’t supposed to be there though. She had been bleeding for twelve years. In the Jewish culture, she was unclean. Unclean meant she shouldn’t be around anyone. Ever. She was basically quarantined from society.

She had tried everything to get better. Spent all her money. Tried many doctors. Nothing was working and I guess after being alone for twelve years….maybe she was just done. So, she snuck into the crowd and made her way to the only hope she had left. She touched his robe and could feel her body heal.

Jesus, being Jesus, said “Who touched my robe?” I love that line because there were probably a ton of people touching his robe but this was obviously different. And he stopped what he was doing to pay attention. This woman was so desperately seeking what he had to offer and Jesus noticed. He stopped in the middle of this throng and took notice of a woman who had nothing, not even social connections, because she was looking to him for help.

Jesus, was willing to stop what he was doing to get into her messiness. He put aside the important guy standing next to him. He put aside his task list (going to heal Jairus’ daughter). He focused on this one, inconsequential, needing to be healed woman.

He did it for her. He does it for you. Will you do it for others?

Which Love?

When they had eaten, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these [others do—with reasoning, intentional, spiritual devotion, as one loves the Father]? He said to Him, Yes, Lord, You know that I love You [that I have deep, instinctive, personal affection for You, as for a close friend]. He said to him, Feed My lambs. John 21:15 (AMPC)

As I read this verse and contemplated on this conversation between Jesus and Peter, I began to wonder about some things. Peter had denied Christ and I am sure his heart was broken. Have you ever done something that you know was not good and felt the immediate conviction from the Holy Spirit? I have. I hate that feeling.

After the conviction and the prayer for forgiveness the feeling like you don’t measure up is overpowering. It seems like the feeling that you are not forgiven lingers.

I wondered about that as I read this passage. Jesus asked Peter if he loved Him with an agape love. Agape love is the strongest, selfless love that we can have. It is like the love that we are loved with from God. But Peter answered the question with a lesser love. He used the word phillia which means more of a friendly, affectionate love.

Did Peter answer with phillia instead of agape because after messing up he felt that he could never get to that point? Did he feel he was not worthy to even think that he could love Jesus that way? Did he doubt himself?

Jesus kept pressing and demonstrated to Peter agape love. He let him know that this was the reason he died on the cross. Because no matter how Peter messed up, he was forgiven. He does the same with us. No matter how we mess up, Jesus presses and demonstrates that we are loved with that unconditional, “I can’t believe it” kind of love. He demonstrated that when he died for us and he demonstrates it every single day when he speaks to our hearts.

Let me ask you. Do you love Jesus with that unconditional, passionate, one-of-a-kind love that he loves you? If not, what’s stopping you? Please don’t let it be because you messed up. That’s already been covered. Ask Peter.