Suddenly

I listened to Neal Cuvuto give some details of a talk he had with a friend who was celebrating His 50th birthday recently. They were enjoying the fact that the market was looking pretty good after hitting the 10,000 mark. They got down to the real important stuff; what it's been like turning 50 in this uncertain world, how several of this man's family had died early deaths, (in their 40's and 50's). What made this conversation so striking to me is people are thinking about something outside of pouring their lives out every day at work and neglecting the most important issue...life itself, and what makes it so important.

The friend talking to Neal had experience with the suddenness of life. Unexpected deaths from disease passed down through genes, the market is very fickle and could suddenly change with a major drop, their ability to make a good living in our competitive society is shaking. The unasked questions in both of them was, exactly how did everything begin to change, when did it all start to slip through my control and why?

The truth is, "it" never was in our control, none of it. God has placed powers and authorities in position, He has the king's hearts in His hands. He blesses whomever He wants to bless and He can withhold from whomever He wants. God said, "Jacob I loved, Esau I hated [rejected]." Rom. 9:13. Job had it all crash away in one day. Nothing as easy as slipping out of his control, a little at a time. "Suddenly, a powerful wind swept in from the wilderness and hit the house on all sides..." Job 1:19. Just part of the verse tells the complete story. The Lord will suddenly bless too. "Suddenly, there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where they were sitting. Then, what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them." Acts2: 2-3.

These two men in their fifities having a man to man about life are thinking of how suddenly it could all be taken away. Imagine the ministry the Church is having in times like these? This is what He has equipped us for...influence in this world. We have everything we need in Christ. A powerful word on influence came from P. Jeff this week at the All-Team meeting on Tuesday. I'm going to write another blog soon on the important words we heard at this meeting. Not just words in a notepad, but words that turn into demonstration of the Gospel of the kingdom in our world. Yes, for those fifty something guys who look like they have it all together too. Whosoever will may come!

Random Thoughts on Grace

These may be random thoughts, but the blessing of grace is anything but random. God is very intentional about all His gifts and because we are His people, we are enriched by these gifts.

This week I've been reading part of the story of King Josiah in 2Chronicles 34-35. Here's where grace comes in for we who are under the new covenant, 35:2-4.

"Josiah also assigned the priests to their duties and encouraged them in their work at the Temple of the Lord. He issued this order to the Levites, who were to teach all Israel and who had been set apart to serve the Lord. Put the holy Ark in the Temple that was built by Solomon son of David, the king of Israel. You no longer ned to carry it back and forth on your shoulders. Now spend your time serving the Lord your God and his people Israel. Report for duty..."

The king assigns and the king encourages those he assigns to work in his kingdom.

The Levites or priests; we are all priests to our God, are to teach all of Israel because we have been set apart for this purpose.

The holy Ark, God's presence, belongs in the Temple. That's us! The forgiven heart is the holy of holies for the presence of God.

"You no longer have to carry [the ark] back and forth on your shoulders."

NO LONGER DO WE CARRY THE LAW ON OUR BACKS!

That's what the law was, a burden on our backs that kept reminding us of our sins.

Now we are free because of the New Covenant, our sins are forgiven, we are justified (free from the penalty of our sins) and made holy by the blood of the Lamb.

Now our time is spent in serving the Lord and His people.

"Report for duty..."

What love! What infinite love!

Even if we can't fully understand it and explain it, we can demonstrate this love that sets us free eternally.We are shown opportunities every day how to demonstrate this love that forgives.

Love your enemies.

Pray for those who spitefully use you.

Forgive the debt.

Cover it with love.

Hope all things for those who look hopeless.

How rich we are to be given these blessings. Opportunities for the world, family, and church to SEE the work of the Holy Spirit.

To Infinity

The title of this blog is an expression our kids used to say to cover every emotion they couldn't explain, especially the really big ones! Here's one: "I love you to infinity!" See, an expression like that always needs an exclaimation point after it. The seed for this blog began early this morning at 6:40 in a tweet from Jim. He sent out Psalms 147:3. When the seed of the Gospel falls on good ground, it produces fruit!

Fast forward to afternoon prayer. "What love, what grace You give us Lord! You can't love us any more than You do because we have been given all of it. It's just that in these human bodies we aren't able to contain it all."

When we are able to see ourselves in God's word like Psalms 147:3, He works His miracles. He tenderly heals our broken hearts when we run to His cross and ask! Remember, "...it is finished."

When we are able to accept more and more of God's love, our containers get bigger and bigger to receive more of this infinite love. If we could contain a tiny fraction of God's love, our world, our churches, our lives, our families would be changed dramatically.

The love that we understand here on earth is the kind that has attachments to it and the Lord wants to change that. It begins and ends with love. That's how we are able to forgive. This love being infinite is like something we can swim in and be changed from the inside out. Changed, cleansed and being made whole.

Serving with God's love is our motivation. Serving as law cannot possibly satisfy the heart and its needs. When we pray we can't possibly tell Jesus that we served because of the law. It doesn't work, God's infinite love is what makes everything work.

I'm so thankful the Lord gave me the memory of our kids using this phrase. The older child taught the younger child and it got passed down for years. There is nothing like a little child loudly proclaiming, "I wuv you to infinity."

Skip down to verse 15 of Psalms 147 and read out loud. His word flies swiftly!! That makes me think of modern technology, I love it. God's "swiftly" is faster than we can imagine. A friend twittered Matt. 10:8. God has freely given us His love, another friend twittered, "God is moving today." Yes, He is and He wants to continue to move in great ways in our church.

C'mon! God is ready to pour out His infinite love every day, as much as we can contain. Until we see Him we will know ALL His love! Pray about this love, show this love to someone. Speak His word and watch it swiftly go to the heart of a needy person. Twitter, text, e-mail His word, send His love in a letter. Most of all, demonstrate His infinite love today.

Cover It With Love

The Lord is faithful. Especially when it's time to relearn a lesson. A difficult one for the human mind is covering all things with love. That doesn't mean we stop dealing with difficulties, it just means we don't take offense first or second or third when any of life's hard times come. It means deal with it, then cover it with love.

We have the power to do that because the Lord has shown us in our own lives how to do it. When we were saved, Jesus covered all our sins with His love. He loved us so much that He forgave all our sins and and has paid our penalty for all those sins. Every one of them. This is His kind of love, agape. This kind of love is a feast of love, dear love, charity. The kind of love given when love isn't given to us. It's the kind of love that covers all kinds of loss. If we are to be imitators of Christ, here is a great one to imitate. What do you suppose God can do with a life and in a life that is committed to this kind of love? Especially in the body of Christ?

An opportunity was thrust into our lives a few years ago to show this kind of love and forgiveness and for two days I couldn't reach that point. One of our adult children was very badly hurt by someone that we had known for 30 years. In two days anger and hurt caught up with me, I realized God was trying to speak to me through this betrayal. I asked Jesus for help after I repented for not taking that step at the very first. Would have saved a lot of grief and pain from a big headache! Such peace in covering sins committed against us!

"You forgave the guilt of your people-yes, you covered all their sins." Psalms 85:2
"...Be strong. And do everything with love." 1Cor.16-13b

That's it right there, the reason we have this kind of love, our own sins have been covered. We can do it, but not on our own. Paul said it, he would rather take a loss or cover it, than to hold on and allow the loss to captivate him.

When love motivates us, (remember what P. Jeff said? "Love made me do it." It's that kind of love) we can expect to see the Holy Spirit do some mighty work in our midst. I'm looking for it.

Freedom

The idea for this blog started yesterday, on Twitter! Does God use technology to spread His word? Yes! It continued on twitter this morning when I posted a verse from John about freedom and it went from there. Here is the verse: "A slave is not a permanent member of the family, but a son is part of the family forever. So if the Son sets you free, you are truly free." John 8:35-36. Then my twitter question was, "how long is forever?" Here is one of the answers: Forev....................(No ending).

So, with that in mind, where do we go from here with that knowledge, with that living word? Here's the important question. Do we continue in sin, since we are sons and daughters forever? A thousand times ...NO!

"Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death? For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives." Romans 6:1-4

Our response to this gift of grace and freedom is not to continue in sin, but to continue in changed lives! This grace is the power to do that. We continue in the love that Christ has given us through this gift; we love more, not less! We worship Him every day because of this gift and when we meet together we worship and praise more not less! We serve more, we give more, not less! This gift of freedom compels us, urges us on and on to live for Him and not for our own desires. The power of change in this gift is so great, we MUST speak and tell the story of His love.

We are sons and daughters of God. Thanks be to God for this gift.

Odor

Language is an amazing thing. Some words may have similar meaning, but with just a hint of difference. Odor is one of those words that can evoke a good meaning, but in another way, not so good. For instance, when the cook is busy in the kitchen and homemade spaghetti sauce is the result, the 'odor' is delightful! On the other hand, having been the mother of four boys, opening the closet door to find old lunches, dirty sneakers and clothes on the floor...well, tends to slam you in the face with the odor.

The odor I'm blogging about today is found in John 11:1-44. The beautiful story of the raising of Lazarus from the dead. Just as our spirits are dead in the grave without salvation, Lazarus was physically dead for several days. God intends for this event to bring glory to the only One who is worthy of glory. When Jesus started praying, He spoke in past tense, as though the deed had already happened, no doubts faith! (v41). With a great shout, "Lazarus, come out, and the dead man came out, his hands and feet bound in graveclothes, his face wrapped in a headcloth. Jesus told them, Unwrap him and let him go!"

Do you have the picture? Lazarus has heard the rhema, his dead body had to obey! Out he comes; stinking, odorous graveclothes still clinging to his body. The headcloth still covering his face. What held it there? His body had been decaying for several days in the grave. He couldn't see very well. Jesus told the relatives who were there to pay respects to a dead brother to unwrap him and let him go.

This powerful retelling of the life, death and resurrection of Lazarus is ours too. We are dead in trespasses and sins until Jesus gets hold of our lives! We are risen to new life, coming out of the grave of sin. We are still bound by some graveclothes we take with us because our human nature has gotten comfortable with some things of the old life. One by one, these stinking graveclothes are removed by the work of the Holy Spirit, until we will be completely set free. These graveclothes could represent many things. Love of things in this life so much that it takes love from Jesus and serving Him. It could be our past. The shame of our past, the anger or unforgiveness toward those who have hurt us. It could be fear of slipping back into old ways, or bitterness that clings. It could be old accusations that have labeled themselves on the graveclothes: loser, you'll never amount to anything, stupid. Many hurtful things that bind us up. The feet of Lazarus were bound. But...

God's will is that we are set free from old, stinking graveclothes. Beautiful are the feet that publish the gospel. Be freed to speak His Good News! The Holy Spirit is at work on our behalf, His work never stops! Imagine if you will, the voice of Jesus commanding that those things that bind us be taken off! Let's trust Jesus today for deliverance. Tell someone today youwant to be free of graveclothes and their odor. More room for the fragrance of Christ.

Perfume 2

There are many verses about perfume in the Bible. Another woman named Mary was compelled to show this love to Jesus (besides the woman of Luke 7:36-50.) "Then Mary took a twelve-ounce jar [grande] of expensive perfume made from essence of nard, (spikenard) and she anointed Jesus' feet with it, wiping his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance." John 12:3. This is Mary the sister of Martha and Lazarus. She is at the feet of Jesus and wiping his feet with her hair, just as the woman of Luke 7 did. In both cases we have a man who absolutely despised what he was seeing in this love and devotion from the women.

Simon, the Pharisee of Luke 7 is bound up by the law and he is glad for it. He thinks this is his salvation, obeying all the rules and everything will be ok. He forgot the teaching of the prophet Micah 6:8, the 'minor prophet' with a major message. This meal took place in Simon's house. What was an immoral woman doing in his house? Simon was privileged to clearly see the road to salvation was repentance, yet he rejected it because judgement had a place in his heart. Poor Simon, rich woman.

By this time the fragrance had to have filled all the house where they were. A constant reminder of the absence of love in his heart. That love drove the woman to be at the feet of Jesus. When Mary in John 12:3 poured the perfume, it says the fragrance filled the whole house! What a nagging reminder to the man under the law! Long after everyone left, the fragrance lingered, it was so powerful. It's like the fragrance of every Christian who witnessed to me before I was saved. It lingered for years and when I was saved I remembered everyone, including strangers on the street.

Two of the people I remember was a Nazarene pastor and his wife that used to come to our house EVERY Friday with a freshly made loaf of Jewish rye bread and invited us to church. What was our answer for months? No. Did we ever say yes? No. They never gave up. When we repented in Alaska I started writing letters to those I knew who had witnessed to me. This couple was the first I wrote to. It was a letter encouraging them to never give up: inviting people to church, asking them to give their lives to Christ, invite them to your home, give gifts. Every good act showers the fragrance of Jesus on this poor, sick world.

We are the house! The Spirit of Christ takes residence in us when we are saved, and when we grow from grace to grace...more perfume! I want my whole house filled with the fragrance of Christ!

By the way, spiknard that was used in Bible times for fragrance was very costly. The plant was dried, then CRUSHED to get the oil and fragrance. To be the fragrance of Jesus we will be crushed but not destroyed!