You are currently browsing the category archive for the 'Jesus' category.
Peter, beloved friend of Jesus and apostle of our faith, reminds us in his second epistle, starting in verse 16: We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For He [Jesus] received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to Him from the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased.” We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with Him on the sacred mountain. And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the Morning Star rises in your hearts…
Scriptures:
- John 1:14
- Luke 1:26-38
- Luke 2 (all)
- 2 Peter 1:16-19
The Apostles, the early church and the church fathers all wrestled vehemently against every heretical argument, question, and effort to water down or even try to explain the mystery and the profoundness of the claims of John 1:14. That the Word, the One who was with the Father when all the heavens and everything therein was made, became flesh and dwelt among us. John would go on to say (paraphrased)… “we have seen Him with our eyes! We have actually looked at God, the One who existed with His Father from the beginning, the One who created all things, we have gazed upon YWHH (God) in the flesh… we even touched Him with our hands! We heard His words with our very own ears! We actually saw God’s glory and His majesty! This is what we are testifying to, these are the things we are telling you as eyewitnesses of God in the flesh, that your joy and our joy may be full…” When we read the words of the saints before us, thoughts may wander to translation and interpretation of doctrine and all the “-ologies,” but if we look closely enough — if we actually listen to that which the saints and eyewitnesses are shouting from the rooftops of the New Testament, we will hear one resounding voice beckoning us to believe with all our hearts this one astounding claim: Jesus is God.
I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.
Who, for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end. (Nicene Creed 325 AD)
God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made… yet somehow in a small town in Israel a couple thousand years ago, He was formed and fashioned in young Mary’s womb. The One who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation; that very same Person ate breakfast at the table of an unknown and unremarkable (by our standards anyway) family in Nazareth, He went to bed each night and slept (somehow without ever sleeping or slumbering – Psalm 121) under a roof that lay under the stars that He set in place, and He grew up with parents and teachers telling and re-telling Him the story of how He created the world in which He now lived and in unfathomable meekness and absurdity, the very same world of which He was now dependent upon.
For by Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. Yet somehow, gravity held God’s feet to the dirty streets of Galilee and perhaps even brought Him to His knees a time or two as a young boy exploring and running with the same immature legs we’ve witnessed in our own toddlers, legs that sometimes get all tangled up beneath them in the excitement of the race. He rose with the sun and laid down with its setting. The God of the universe was subject to the laws He set in place at the foundations of the world. The Holy One eternally clothed in glory and light actually covered in dirt and in need of a bath after a long day of working and playing and traveling from place to place… and oh, how far He would go. His travels would take Him further than anyone may ever realize, just so we might finally see and recognize the Light shining in the darkness.
Have you seen Him? In the midst of economic downturns, political bickering, Christmas sales and innumerable, yet meaningless distractions, have you seen Him? God is not relegated as we once thought to the distant and unfeeling throne of invisibility… He is so much nearer than we realize. And not just once, not just two thousand years ago across the globe in Jerusalem… we cannot leave the Incarnation at those distant shores as though it somehow stopped. On the throne, even now, sits a Man who is God… His name is Jesus… and He lives… He lives…
He lives to make intercession for us. And one day, in the not so distant future, He will return to take what is rightfully His and no one… no one will mistake His identity in that day. Every knee will bow and tongue confess that Jesus is the Lord and He is worthy of our worship.
I would say that today, in meditating and contemplating the Word made flesh, that it is the humanity of Jesus that is so striking my heart – except that Jesus’ humanity can never be separated or compartmentalized from His divinity. The reality that He is completely divine is what so wrecks my heart about His humanity. He is wholly other than in every page of the Gospels: every word spoken, every life touched, and even in the pages in between – all of the untold stories. Stephen said this to me today just in conversation, “over and over again when I meditate and journal on the gospels the most breathtaking part of the incarnation is what isn’t said in scripture. That would include the 18 silent years, but goes beyond into all the meals, all the hours of conversation or silence as Jesus walked from place to place, the interactions with His family, etc…the radical accessibilty of God in Christ is just devastating.” (I love my husband : )
So I say again to you today, with just ten days until the day that we celebrate that wonderfully inconceivable moment where Eternity forever joined Himself with time, have you seen Him?
I pray that the Holy Spirit would open our eyes and our ears and our hearts to the Word made flesh, to Jesus Christ again today and may we behold with undone hearts and bended knee the beauty of the One and Only, glorious and beautiful, full of grace and truth, God Himself in the flesh, our Lord, our Bridegroom, our soon and coming King. May it be said of us, with eyes of faith and hearts filled with the very Spirit of the living God, that we lived our lives not in the darkness of this world or in the flesh, but may we live as ones who see and believe and testify to the beauty of the Lord… may we ourselves become eyewitnesses of His majesty.
I just stumbled across this old thing I had written, and I thought that it was posted on this blog at some point, but I couldn’t find it in its fullness (just parts of it) so I decided to post it today for day 11 of Advent with a few little additions here or there. If you have already read it, then sorry… I’m spacey. But today I’m meditating on His compassion and the great reach of His lovingkindness past the pain and circumstance and trials of all sorts that humanity faces in this age, and past all the preoccupations and manipulations and maneuvering of man’s heart in response to that pain or circumstance or trial. Right in the very middle of all of that, Jesus somehow sovereignly makes all things good for those who love Him.
I want to mention with this post two people who are very much a part of my prayers and of my heart before the Lord in this Advent season. You are my heroes right now and God’s treasures… truly, He delights in you in ways you or I cannot imagine. You are friends of Jesus in every way. And I pray that you would be enveloped by the Spirit’s comforting revelation of the compassion of God’s heart and the fullness of its reach and power.
To Kristi and Lauren: When I think of both of you, I think of Proverb 31:25 – of your strength and dignity and your leaning into and trusting the Kind and True Leadership of the King over all your lives, even through the valleys into what may look like a long, dark night (though knowing and trusting that you are not without Light to lead you through)… and living your lives through every season of the soul with a singular goal: that Jesus would be glorified. Christ and Christ alone is your reward and your portion forever. When that is your reality and your center, shaking my come but you will not be moved. What greater thing can be said of a person?? Your God-given strength is stunning to me (as seen from a long distance, but still very seen). Your deep, provoking love for Jesus is so evident and glorious. May the revelation of Compassion and of Jesus be the wall of fire around your soul as you navigate the days and weeks ahead… and may the power of His unfailing, unyielding love continue to be the hope that anchors your heart. You are beautiful friends of Jesus… I so honor and respect who you are and how you love Jesus. I pray you both would drink deeply at the wells of Compassion and feast upon the Bread of life that you would be sustained and somehow even refreshed in the midst of circumstance greater than yourselves. May Jesus hold you tight and keep you and cause His face to shine brightly upon you and your families…
And may He keep us all, lift up His countenance upon us, and help us to remember this Advent season the radical love with which He has loved us - a love that no prison walls can confine and not even the grave could contain. A love that conquers all, making us more than conquerors and in turn, circumstances, good or bad, become nothing but slaves to the Tyrant of Love.
“You may call God love; you may call God goodness; but the best name for God is Compassion.” (Meister Eckhart, 13th century mystic)
There is no attribute more personal to me than the Compassion of God revealed in the face of Christ, the Word made Flesh. As most or all of you know, I was born with a bone and joint disease that has left me in and out of hospitals throughout my childhood and adulthood. It has been a big part of my life – something that I spent much of life fighting against and trying to somehow hide (even though it was a big part of who I was); whereas now, though the fighter in me is still very much alive and well, I am in a new chapter of well…I’m not sure what you would call it. Except to say, much more of life seems to be defined or affected by the limitations and pain that have increased exponentially in the last 7 years but I have so much more grace, joy, gratitude, affection and peace than I think I did when things were ‘easier.’
So anyway, back to the real post, on my journey with the God who Heals, I have been taught and bought into many formulas, I have been introduced to all kinds of “natural remedies or cures,” and I have been prophesied over too many times to count (gratefully). I have swung like a pendulum between Sovereignty and Faith and then found a holy resting place within Jesus’ heart where the tension between these two abides. But through all of that, I have discovered that what, or rather Who, I really needed is a Person. I need the “theology” part of what is typically referred to as a “healing theology” — I need the God part, the Person, the relationship with that Person, the reality of knowing Jesus. Healing, not to mention the strength to endure in the delay, and everything in between is found only in God Himself… not a formula or a philosophical idea about sickness or healing, not man’s opinions on what I should do, not the doctors (though they are very important and necessary), and not my own faltering plans to somehow fight hard enough or be strong enough or somehow stir up whatever “enough faith” might be.
What I need is to commune with the God who heals and find Him in the face of Christ. I need to behold the One who is the Author and Finisher of my faith, so that I may have a faith rooted in Reality Himself that can never be shaken even when the storms come (and they do come). I need to hear Jesus’ words and know His heart for me here… right here, in the delay, I need my Deliverer to show up right in the midst of pain and/or sickness and speak to me in this place. And He has. I find Him in the pages of His story (especially in the Gospels) which serve as an everlasting record of this unfathomable thing called the Incarnation – God took on flesh and walked around on the earth talking to people, touching people, listening to people, eating meals with people, loving people, healing people, and dying for those He loves. Every action, every word, every move Jesus makes reveals who God is. I found Yahweh in the Hands reaching out to touch a leper, cast out of society and unclean to all. From these untouchable ones, He did not cringe – He did not withdraw – Jesus reached with holy hands and a fully exposed heart to cleanse them. Suddenly the untouchable were touched. Suddenly the unclean were cleansed and not by just anyone, but by God in the flesh. Suddenly the broken were whole again. Jesus is Compassion Incarnate.
Throughout the Word of God, the Holy Spirit was very specific about revealing this dimension and reality of God’s heart. In Exodus 33, God says, “I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the LORD before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” And then in chapter 34, we see Yahweh declare His name to Moses, “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands…” (Exodus 34:5-7) In Psalm 145, verse 8, David says of the Lord, “The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” But the very fullness of the self-revelation of the compassion in God’s heart was exposed in the life of our Lord, Jesus Christ. God said, Himself and through His holy prophets, “I am kind, compassionate, abounding in love… this is who I AM.” But never was the message made so clear as it was coming from the Man who created the galaxies and walked across the rugged lands of Judea through seas of suffering souls and did not look away. He took it all into His heart – there was no hardness of sin to protect Him. He was the Man of Sorrows. Jesus is so close – He touches us here, He speaks to us here, He is with us here… even in the hard places. No matter what lies the enemy would try to send as arrows into our hearts… they will all fall short, because He’s not far off, God came near.
For me, like many with chronic pain or any kind of illness or physical trial, it is often in the night when the symptoms are more significant and even sleep is hard to find, but in this time the words of the psalmist come alive in my heart, “On my bed I remember You. I think of You, Jesus, and meditate on You through the watches of the night. Because You are my help, I sing underneath the shadows of Your wings. My soul clings to you…” (Psalm 63)
And in those moments, my mind and my soul will turn to scenes like Mark 5… and there He is, God in the flesh, walking by the Sea surrounded by a throng of people… GOD walking around on the dirt with which He formed the very flesh that He was now clothed in! A certain ruler of the synagogue had come imploring Jesus to help him, for his only daughter was dying. And Jesus went. No hesitation – no asking about this child’s faith, if it was “enough” or if the girl was brave enough or strong enough… Jesus went to this little girl because He loved her. God walked down that road with a small 12-year old girl in His mind whose hand He would soon be taking into His own. When He arrived, Jesus and a select few including the parents of the girl would go to find a child lost to death… but not to Him. Jesus would reach His hand and gently wrap it around the hand of this little one who He knit together so wonderfully and carefully in her mother’s womb, whose every hair on her head is known of by Him…oh hear the heart of flesh in the Second Person of the Trinity beating for this child… “I know you… you are Mine”…”I love you”… “Arise!”
Yet on His way to her house, as the crowd was pressing all around Jesus, there was a woman, a woman who those who are facing sicknesses of all kinds might understand all too well. A woman who for years had suffered in pain and spent all she had searching for some form of treatment or help, only to get worse… she was pitied and even despised… hers was a desperate life broken by sickness that would not relent. She has heard about this Jesus, that wherever He goes, healing and miracles follow. She might have been a little skeptical after so many years of coming up empty-handed, but still the childlike hope within her had to believe and though she couldn’t explain why, this Man called Yeshua awakened something Greater within her than she had ever experienced before, even though she had never met Him… so she searched Him out. She pushed her way through fighting crowds and those that casually dismissed her frailly standing there, limping unnoticed in her weakness through their midst without help or regard… she fought in weakness, every step she took required more than she could bear, but she had to get close to Him. If only I could touch his clothes… that’s all it would take if He is truly who I think He is… just the hem of His garment. One more struggling step and a lunge is all it would take… and she throws herself down in the dust through the crowd to reach for the last piece of His robe trailing beside Him.
Light. Life. Relief.
Everything stops. He turns, “Who touched me?”
“Me. I’m sorry… it was me,” she says in fear and trembling, all the eyes in the crowd now watching her with Him.
But instead of the callous disregard or anger that she half expected, He looked down at her in the dirt… and smiled. Eyes full of love and compassion, He reached His hand to hers and pulled her out of the dust. “Daughter… my daughter, you are free.”
Though in those moments of fellowship with God, I may not be instantly and completely healed in a physical way, I find Jesus there… the Word made flesh… and He sets me free and gives me rest. This is my way to His heart. It never fails. And this is my way into faith and believing. I can trust Him… Jesus is good. He’s good. He’s good. And He’s near. And when He’s near, despite my circumstance (in prosperity or loss), I am truly free. True freedom comes when my reward and my portion is not tied to this world or any good or bad thing it has to offer me, but to my Home in another Age with the One I love.
When I feel far away, I search Jesus out where I know I can find Him… in the pages of the Gospels. There are nights I feel as though (in a very small and insignificant way that hardly compares to most of the suffering experienced across the globe) I am huddled up in my little “prison cell,” no light, alone, no comforts (though truly I have all the comforts in the world)… just me, raw and weary, clutching the Word made flesh for every breath… and Jesus breathes… and that “cell” becomes an Ocean without shore.
As a father has compassion on his children,
so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him,
For He knows our frame;
He remembers that we are dust. (Psalm 103:13-14)
Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him.” (Lam 3:21-24)
He is not so far that we cannot find Him, so mysterious that we cannot understand who He is and how He loves us. God came near… John says it best: “We have heard… we have seen with our eyes… we have looked upon and touched – this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The Life appeared; we have seen and we testify, and we proclaim to you the Eternal Life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.”
May the fullness of the revelation of God, Jesus Christ, be yours today… and mine… as we ponder Him in our hearts and clutch, with every fiber of our being, the Word made flesh.
Well, I set out with what was perhaps too lofty of a goal of posting something for each day of Advent… obviously a bit unrealistic since I’m about eight days behind (on the writing part anyway). I’m hoping to pick back up from here — so we will see : ) Tonight I came across this little nugget (big truth) from a beloved Christmas devotional and I’m quite sure I could not write anything better so I decided to just post this for day 10 of Advent. My prayer is that Jesus would wreck your heart with the reality of His unyielding, inseparable Love for us, just as He did mine tonight.
Scriptures:
- Romans 8:31-39
- Psalm 103
- John 17:23-24
- Isaiah 9:6-7
For to us a child is born,
to us a Son is given;
and the government shall be upon His shoulder,
and His name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of His government and of peace
there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
to establish it and to uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this. (Isaiah 9:6-7)
TIMELESS, BOUNDLESS LOVE - Max Lucado
Untethered by time, God sees us all… vagabond and ragamuffins all, He saw us before we were born.
And He loves what He sees. Flooded by emotion. Overcome by pride, the Starmaker turns to us, one by one, and says, “You are My child. I love you dearly. I’m aware that someday you’ll turn from Me and walk away. But I want you to know, I’ve already provided a way back.”
And to prove it, He did something extraordinary.
Stepping from the throne, He removed His robe of light and wrapped Himself in skin: pigmented, human skin. The light of the universe entered a dark, wet womb. He whom angels worship nestled Himself in the placenta of a peasant, was birthed into a cold night, and then slept on cow’s hay.
Mary didn’t know whether to give Him milk or give Him praise, but she gave Him both since He was, as near as she could figure, hungry and holy.
Joseph didn’t know whether to call Him Junior or Father. But in the end, he called Him Jesus, since that’s what the angel had said and since he didn’t have the faintest idea what to name a God he could cradle in his arms…
Don’t you think…their heads tilted and their minds wondered, “What in the world are you doing, God?” Or, better phrased, “God, what are You doing in the world?”
“Can anything make me stop loving you?” God asks. “Watch Me speak your language, sleep on your earth, and feel your hurts. Behold the Maker of sight and sound as He sneezes, coughs, and blows His nose. You wonder if I understand how you feel? Look into the dancing eyes of the kid in Nazareth: that’s God walking to school. Ponder the toddler at Mary’s table: that’s God spilling His milk.”
“You wonder how long My love will last? Find your answer on a splintered cross, on a craggy hill. That’s Me you see up there, your Maker, your God, nail-stabbed and bleeding. Covered in spit and sin-soaked.”
“That’s your sin I’m feeling. That’s your death I’m dying. That’s your resurrection I’m living. That’s how much I love you.”
—-by Max Lucado (excerpt from One Incredible Moment, italics and underlining added by me)
Oh beautiful and glorious Branch of the Lord! I’m telling you, the Incarnation NEVER grows old!! One could spend his entire life pondering its mysteries, the heights and depths and reaches of its glory, and still find himself standing barely at its shores with not more than his smallest toe in its waters. (Fortunately we have from everlasting to everlasting to search Him out.) It’s so remarkable to me to hear Christians say that they think the Bible is boring or that it isn’t as fun to read as whatever short-lived sensation is making its way up the ranks of the New York Times Bestseller list… I used to be that person (who might get more excited about the newest movie than the second chapter of Luke), so please know that I’m saying this with sincerity and not because of some “religious” inclination. But I really believe that if we can grasp (if even a little) the reality that God… the very Person that created the earth, the moon, the sun, the stars and galaxies whose existence and beauty alone leave both preacher and scientist utterly speechless and humbled by the wonder of it all. That very same Creator of beauty, clothed in light and worshipped eternally by all of Heaven’s host, in what would be His most glorious revelation and declaration of Love, left His throne, exchanged a covering of light and glory for skin, and walked among us. That simple fact, that the Word became flesh, should change everything about the way we read the Word and the way we understand God. On a dark night in a small town when no one (except for maybe a few) were even looking and in a way that no one could have imagined (except by divine inspiration), God Himself was actually born to a teenage mother and a lowly carpenter in a stinky stable with only a few shepherds to give Him the laud that He actually deserves. One indescribable moment and everything… everything is different. The unknowable, unsearchable God without beginning or end has a voice that we can hear and a face that we can see and touch, and yet not die because of it. And maybe, just maybe, humanity will finally believe what He has been trying to tell us all along…He actually wants us to know Him. The Gospels are an inexhaustible treasure that if looked upon rightly could not possibly grow old or be labeled as boring or irrelevant. Every movement, every breath, every word spoken (or not spoken), every touch, every tear and every smile on the face of Christ is a glimpse into the unsearchable emotions and attributes of the One who was, and is, and is to come.
I was thinking just tonight about how we are really left reeling by one itty bitty drop of the Divine here in time, our lives upside down at one glimmer of the heavens opened upon us with all our “swooning away and falling to the Ground . . . bitter Shriekings and Screamings; Convulsion-like Tremblings and Agitations, Strugglings and Tumblings.” (FYI those aren’t my words or my description, I just like it— that is a quote taken from John Piper’s book about Jonathan Edwards, an outside observer’s description of the Great Awakening during that time.) Anyway, our lives are so disrupted, our minds and emotions forced out of complacent disregard and vain religion when even a little bit of the presence and reality of God breaks in among us. Yet in the midst of these experiences, as grateful as we must be for them, what we all must know and realize (hopefully) is that these drinks of water in the desert, refreshing and indescribable as they are, are merely the tiniest drops of dew, just eternal vapors really, from what can only be described (if at all) as an immense ocean without shore or floor. Crazy as it may or may not seem, these drops of Heaven’s dew and these tastes of what (or Who) is better are still nowhere close to the fullness of God. (Oh what glory awaits us in that Day!!) But here is the mind-blowing reality… going back to the glory of the Incarnation… in Jesus, the FULLNESS of God (that shoreless, bottomless ocean I mentioned above) dwelt in a body (Colossians 1:19) on the earth, and the earth didn’t explode!! The fullness of God was walking around in Israel eating and drinking and sweating and sleeping (however that works with Psalm 121:4) and talking to other people. The fullness of God lay in a teenage mother’s arms peering through newborn eyes of flesh that could just barely adjust to the light around him (that which was His clothing just 9 months before) at the adoring face above Him. How is that possible? How did Mary walk around for nine months with the fullness of God in a tiny little body dwelling inside her belly? Just a tiny shift in the sun’s energy and the earth would literally be ripped into pieces… how did the Maker of the sun, the Son Himself, walk around on the earth without the earth melting like wax? I don’t know. But He did. And all I know is that is definitely not boring… “that’s how much He loves you.” So they can have their New York Times bestsellers and box office hits, give me but one page of one Gospel and all of eternity – what else do I need but Jesus? Give me Christ, and Christ alone… though I hunger, I will be filled; and though I thirst, I will be satisfied.
“Can anything make me stop loving you?” God asks. “Watch Me speak your language, sleep on your earth, and feel your hurts. Behold the Maker of sight and sound as He sneezes, coughs, and blows His nose. You wonder if I understand how you feel? Look into the dancing eyes of the kid in Nazareth: that’s God walking to school. Ponder the toddler at Mary’s table: that’s God spilling His milk.”
“You wonder how long My love will last? Find your answer on a splintered cross, on a craggy hill. That’s Me you see up there, your Maker, your God, nail-stabbed and bleeding. Covered in spit and sin-soaked.”
“That’s your sin I’m feeling. That’s your death I’m dying. That’s your resurrection I’m living. That’s how much I love you.”
Scriptures:
- Genesis 3
- Isaiah 53:6
I’m in the midst of a terrible flare – the temperature change (of 40 degrees in 18 hours) hit my body like a sledgehammer, so doing anything on the computer is terribly painful. Thus, tonight’s entry might be brief and not all that great, so bear with me (and pray for me too). Our devotion today was on sin and the fall of man. It was interesting because as Stephen and I started the devotion, we realized we were now trying to talk about sin and evil in a very clear way with a 2 1/2 year old. Noah kept asking “who ate the fruit” and why they couldn’t eat it. He wanted to go over the story again and again… he’s very into “why’s” right now – everything is ‘why Mommy’ and once you give an answer, he then asks ‘why’ about the answer. (Isn’t it a little early for that? I wasn’t expecting the why stage to start for at least another year or so?? It’s so much like Stephen though… he even started asking why and pondering the deeper meaning in everything as a toddler too, hmmmm.) Anyway, in the end, what seemed complex at the start was really not that hard to understand, even for a toddler. I asked Noah if he understood that sometimes when Mommy and Daddy tell him not to do something, like touch a candle when it’s lit, we do it to protect him so that nothing bad happens to him or so he doesn’t get hurt, like getting burned to reference the aforementioned example. And then we brought that back around to God telling Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit. Then, although obviously this is not a really deep analogy and there might be better ways to explain it (but it worked for my 2 year old), I compared Adam and Eve having to leave everything that was good and the sweet fellowship they had with God in the garden to when Noah is put in timeout and we take him out of the room, leaving all his toys and whatever he was doing behind, because he disobeys or does something wrong. In his little Bible, I love it… after Adam and Eve are banished it says, ‘normally you might think this is where the story ends… but not in God’s story!” I asked Noah if he remembers what happens at the end of timeout…how Mommy or Daddy will come to get him, but (as Noah was quick to remind us) before we take him out of timeout we explain again what he did wrong and he says he’s sorry… and then most importantly, every single time we take him in our arms and give him lots of hugs and kisses and tell him how much we love him. You see where this is going already, right? Honestly, maybe it seems silly, but the reality of the love of Christ so touched my heart as we were talking. Just thinking in such a simple but provoking way that the indescribable love and mercy exists in my little heart when I take Noah up in my arms and shower him with affection, even when he does something wrong, is nothing compared to the mercy and love that brought Eternity and time together at the first coming of Christ.
“For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” (Luke 11)
There was a plan that existed in God’s heart even before Adam and Eve took that fruit and left the glory of the garden to do something so radical, so unbelievable… that He would actually come Himself. He wouldn’t just send an angel or a messenger – but God Himself would come to the very place to which mankind was banished and take on flesh that He made from the dust of the earth, that we might once again know the sweet fellowship and knowledge of God that we were made to enjoy from the beginning. What kind of crazy love is that?!
Ironically or sovereignly, Noah cried at the beginning of our time together because he wanted to read and talk about Jesus on the cross instead. I guess he already knew where the story was going : ) Oh the great power in the Hand that rescues us when Compassion Incarnate takes us up in His arms and crowns us with lovingkindness… Jesus, may the Truth set us free tonight. Abba, I pray your children would find themselves caught up in Your mighty embrace, showered with the affections of Your heart, and O God I pray that in Your mercy, You would remind us again and again that nothing can separate us from the love found in Christ Jesus, our Lord, and nothing can snatch us from Your embrace.
I’ll leave with a little something from Bernard of Clairvaux:
God certainly is well within His rights in claiming to Himself the works of His own hands, the gifts He Himself has given! How should the thing made fail to love the Maker, provided that it has from Him the power to love at all? How should it not love Him with all its powers, since only by His gift has it got anything? Man, called into being out of nothing by God’s free act and raised to such high honour, how patent is his debt of love to God’s most just demand! How vastly God has multiplied His mercy too, in saving man and beast in such a way! Why, we had turned our glory into the likeness of a calf that eateth hay; our sin had brought us to the level of the beasts that know not God at all! If then, I owe myself entire to my Creator, what shall I give my Re-Creator more? The means of our remaking too – think what they cost! It was far easier to make than to redeem; for God had but to speak a word and all things were created, I included; but He, who made me by a word, and made me once for all, spent on the task of my remaking many words and many marvelous deeds, and suffered grievous and humiliating wrongs.
What reward therefore shall I give the Lord for all the benefits He has done to me? By His first work, He gave myself to me; and by the next, He gave Himself to me.
Praise the LORD, O my soul;
all my inmost being, praise His holy name.
Praise the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all His benefits-
who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,
who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s…
The LORD is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love…
He does not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is His love for those who fear Him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far has He removed our transgressions from us.
As a father has compassion on his children,
so the LORD has compassion on those who fear Him;
For He knows how we are formed,
He remembers that we are dust. (Psalm 103)
Scriptures:
- Genesis 1 and 2
- John 1:1-4
- John 17:5, 24
- Colossians 1:15-19
- Hebrews 1:10
- Psalm 150
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him and without Him, was not any thing made that was made…
Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things that were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – ALL things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together…
The word “Advent” means “coming.” The celebration of Advent really commemorates the coming of Christ 1) at His birth - that insane moment in history when God was born in Bethlehem, 2) into our hearts as we become His dwelling place - Christ in us, the hope of glory, 3) at His death and Resurrection, and 4) in that Day when the skies part and mounts split as the King returns to claim His rightful Kingdom and make all things new again. It’s really my favorite season because even though the holiday season has sadly morphed into something that barely resembles or remembers the glory of the Incarnation and the One who came and is coming again soon, there still remains a whisper of His greatness if you listen really closely… a whisper that cannot be silenced by ‘50% off sales’ or jolly old bearded men in red suits… a whisper that roars with unequivocal force in the hearts of those who love Him… that still small voice that has the power to melt the mountains like wax and turn the entire world upside down and inside out. Consumerism and greed and all that would try to hide our eyes from the One who is preeminent and supreme… know this: He will not be silenced. Jesus… Yeshua… God in the flesh… Emmanuel… YHWH (Yahweh)… God came near and oh, here’s the really glorious news: He’s coming again.
Today we look to Jesus in the beginning, in Genesis 1 and 2, and in turn, throughout all of time and eternity. Jesus’ presence and active role in the beginning as Creator and Maker of all things that were made is hugely significant in New Testament Theology. Jesus Himself, Peter, Paul, John, and the writer of Hebrews all made a point of the fact that Jesus was not only there “before the foundation of the world” (John 17:5, 24) but also participated in the creation of all things (John 1, Eph 3:9, Col 1:16, Heb 1:2, Heb 1:10 to name a few), sustains all things (Col 1:17, I Cor 8:6, Heb 1:3), and has dominion over all things (Matt 8:26-27, John 6:18-21, Luke 5:6, John 21:6, John 2:11, Eph 1:20-21, and so forth). I love one of Max Lucado’s 25 questions for Mary, he asks “did you ever feel awkward teaching Him how He created the world?”
The truth about who Jesus is can only be realized when you view Him through a continual gaze from who He was before the foundations were even laid to His appearance in the Old Testament Theophanies (Gen 3, Gen 18, Exod 24, Numbers 12, Josh 5, etc) to His birth at the Incarnation, His growth from a child to a man, His ministry, His passion, His death and resurrection, and then looking to Him as the One sitting on His throne at the right hand of the Father, living to make intercession for His Bride, and finally as the wonderful King and righteous Judge that will return to rule over all. For some reason, our propensity is to compartmentalize Jesus into little categories or boxes that we can easily understand, “baby Jesus” or ”the suffering Lamb on the Cross”, “the Lion”, “God”, “man” and so on… but He is One Person, He cannot be torn apart and analyzed – He is God! He can only be known and loved because He wholly reveals Himself in relationship with wholehearted believers… who He was, He is and will always be. The beauty of the Incarnation would be incomplete without the revelation that the Baby who was born in a dirty, smelly stable in a small unknown town in Israel is the very same God who stretched the heavens in the sky overhead, the same Person who created every living creature and brought man (including His own mother) from the very dust of the ground with a word and His breath. Likewise, the roar of the Lion would utterly destroy us without knowing longsuffering and meekness of the Lamb.
When we begin to see Jesus in His completeness (although always through finite eyes… for now anyway, I Cor 13:12), it is then that our knees buckle and our bodies can barely contain the song of our hearts, “WORTHY is the Lamb… Holy, Holy, Holy… beautiful and glorious are You Jesus.” And then, perhaps again, by His Spirit, the Word is made flesh through us and in us and that absolute Truth resounds on earth as it is in heaven, that in all things, Jesus Christ is infinitely supreme.
So today I set my eyes on the Maker of the heavens and the earth and the tender Babe born to a young mother in a tiny, dark stable in Bethlehem beneath the stars He set in place, to the One with wounds in hands and feet whose tears, blood and intercession would unveil the greatest Love the world had never known, to the resurrected One whose same Love even the grave could not contain, and toward the heavens where at last mine eyes will see in full and my tears will shower His beautiful feet with grateful love when the skies are parted and our Beloved King returns… all this, and so much more, and I am undone again.
Jesus, you said when you left so long ago that you would not leave us as orphans, that You would send Your Spirit to remind us of who You are and of all You’ve said and done. I pray, Holy Spirit, that You would help us as we celebrate this Advent and peer into Your coming… help us to remember… remind us again of Who You truly are… let us drink of the depths and heights and widths and lengths of Your great love and heart… and may the whispers of Your coming shake us from our slumber, awaken us to Love’s violent tyranny, and cause our hearts to tremble until finally we join with the cry of the seraphim through all the ages, crying “Holy, holy, holy…”
Blogging… hmmmm… I remember blogs. My favorite two things about blogging are:
- To read my faraway (and nearer) friends’ blogs and feel that closeness and day to day journey again – something you just can’t have when you have four states in between you (or more) – and I really do miss you guys, just so you know… and that day to day glimpse into each other’s hearts and lives something that is even hard in the world of night and day prayer (even though we’re in the same city) for moms with little ones trying to spin so many plates at once in a world where nothing stops (24 hours a day, 7 days a week)
- I love writing and I love looking back and remembering what Noah did that day or how the Lord touched my heart during that particular time
Yet, sometimes, like the last however many months, you just don’t feel like blogging or at least I don’t. Anyone know what I mean? (Especially when you are an introvert like me — an INFJ for all you Meyers Briggs fans). I have to FEEL it to express it and I have to be a bit out of my cave. So what brought me out of my cave of late?
Simple. 10 YEARS of night and day prayer. I’m just a mess over it : )
Ten years… night and day and day and night, no matter the hour… or as my much more eloquent husband says in a yet-to-be-released publication (that he might not be so thrilled about me posting on the world wide web), “If you happened to wander in at 3am on a Sunday or 5pm on a Wednesday you would discover a room longer than it is wide, large enough to hold only several hundred grey chairs. At the front is a small platform where roughly ten souls, most of whom haven’t yet reached twenty-five years, play instruments and lift their voices in a flowing dance of structure and spontaneity mingled with interjections of spoken prayers. Before them an assembly of people that ebbs and flows in size sits not looking at them but beyond them, offering supplication and praise to the One who alone is worthy of this incessant attention.”
And the reason for this phenomenon? Well, I can tell you this… it’s not about a cool ministry or cool music (cuz ahem… we’re not that cool, people, trust me). It’s not about the right marketing strategy or big conferences (cuz um, well, I won’t say anything about that). Night and day prayer is about Heaven. It’s about wanting things on earth as they are in Heaven. And Heaven is a real place that is utterly centered around one Triune Person… the living God. Our beloved Jesus Christ, the Worthy One, preeminent and supreme in all things for all time, in Whom we live and breath and have our being, by Whom and for Whom all things that were made were made, He is before all things and in Him, all things hold together. “Night and day prayer is not a testimony to human dedication but rather to the power of the majesty of Jesus to ensnare weak hearts and hold them fast in unending preoccupation.” (Stephen Venable)
This is where my heart has been feasting these last few weeks… in not just Kansas City, but the many expressions and witnesses God has risen up all over the earth to declare one thing, “Jesus Christ is worthy.” More worthy than our wealth, more worthy than all the opportunities to ignore Him, more worthy than our ministries, more worthy than our egos, more worthy than the rulers of the earth… worthy, worthy, worthy is the Lamb, the One that was and is and is to come.
On September 19th, here in Kansas City, we celebrated 10 years of unceasing worship and prayer in our community. Of which, I have been blessed to be a part of 8 1/2 of them. I so remember first coming here… which is a crazy story that I won’t go into. But I came from a VERY nice church and let’s face it in Texas, we just do things… well, BIG. So I came with a certain “assumption” of what the International House of Prayer would look like. And well, let’s just say it was not what I expected. It was the “stable” as some like to call it… it was – well, it was a trailer. That’s it. I think I was like the 30-something’th person on staff. And now, ten years later, we are bursting at the seams (in thousands) with I don’t even know how many properties – all with crazy God stories as to why we even have them (like Harry Truman’s land that was sold to us by a Jewish man) and crazy stories like that. So much has changed in 10 years. But what brought me to tears as we celebrated these last 10 years were not all the changes and all the testimonies of how far God has brought us over a decade… but the flame. The fire in men and women and children’s hearts that brings them day after day after night after night back to the place of prayer and of worship… the testimony of Christ that is whispered in the walls of that building over on Red Bridge and the fragrance that rises toward Heaven… His gaze peering back at us, weak and broken and striving human beings that we are, yet He sees and knows and loves. That mighty flame… loving and being loved by God Himself… prayers offered by the saints in accordance with His will… it remains. That is simply stunning to me. Everything around us might be changing, but the reality that binds us together is unchanging, eternal, unfailing… Jesus Christ is worthy… He is supreme.
In addition, during this ten-year celebration, the Lord put on the hearts of the leadership team that this the time to start 24/7 works of Justice. Justice being outreach of all sorts – from simple evangelism to a Women’s Life Center to rescue, support and help victims of the sex-trafficking trade to Orphan Justice and adoption to an inner city mission center and prayer room as well as many other ministries flowing out of the place of night and day supplication for the mercy of God. The center and heartbeat of the International House of Prayer will always, always be night and day prayer and worship. All other realities flow out of that singular calling the Lord has put at the heart of this ministry. Yet, I so feel the answer and kindness of the Lord to us in this season to grow even deeper in the place of prayer and in the 1st commandment by diving deeper into the 2nd commandment. My heart has been really stirred by compassion and service flowing from the reality of night and day prayer… something I hope to write about a little more in the weeks ahead if I can find time. Aslan is on the move… : )
Here are a few fun videos remembering the last 10 years that were showed during the celebration services:
Mourning makes us poor; it powerfully reminds us of our smallness. But it is precisely here, in that pain or poverty or awkwardness, that the Dancer invites us to rise up and take the first steps. For in our suffering, not apart from it, Jesus enters our sadness, takes us by the hand, pulls us gently up to stand, and invites us to dance. We find the way to pray, as the psalmist did, “You have turned my mourning into dancing” (Ps. 30:11), because at the center of our grief, we find the grace of God. (Henri Nouwen)
Never before has the reality of our life as a vapor (James 4) or a fading flower (Isa 40) been so tangibly real in my own life as it has in the last month or so… yet simultaneously, it is as if I am living in slow motion right now, where every breath seems to come to me just as slow as it leaves me, where every joy stuns and overwhelms me as it slowly washes over me and every sorrow wounds me as it steadily penetrates all my pretentious defenses. Some days I feel like I’m the person in that climactic scene that we’ve all seen in the movies where the slow ballad plays and the main character is taking stock of his or her life through one slow motion glimpse or memory after another. It’s amazing how even in the small things… like a lily opening up her ’soul’ to the sun after a sweet spring rain OR the innocent delight of my little Noah as he runs from one side of the room to the other while turning his cute smiling face to find Mommy’s delight in him as he passes me by… in these little, slow-moving moments, my eyes seem to open to Something, or Someone, more alive than life itself.
The days have been indescribably slow, yet indelibly transforming. In the same chapter by Henri Nouwen quoted above, he says:
“I once saw a stonecutter remove great pieces from a huge rock on which he was working. In my imagination I thought, That rock must be hurting terribly. Why does this man wound the rock so much? But as I looked longer, I saw the figure of a graceful dancer emerge gradually from the stone, looking at me in my mind’s eye and saying, “You foolish man, didn’t you know that I had to suffer and thus enter into my glory?”
Mourning, loss, suffering, pain… all of these have an unwavering power to reveal our humanity – our smallness in the scheme of things – as well as our deep disdain for said weakness. In the best of circumstances, it is easy to sing the old song, “I Surrender All…” but when push comes to shove, those words do not fall from our lips quite as freely. Or maybe they do, but the weight of them upon our souls is absolutely crushing if we are truly ‘drinking the cup.’
I have been ”enjoying” that place of crushing these last few months. I find that I am utterly helpless in this experience of physical pain. I can take the medicines that are available to me and I can go through a short list of things that might help, but at the end of the day, all I can really do is endure. And even enduring has taken on an entirely new meaning. It’s hard to explain, but quite honestly, I have never experienced this kind of pain before and it has been a trial by fire unlike anything I have ever known. Have you ever felt something, whether physically or emotionally, that you really (in all honesty, with no drama or exaggeration) thought that there was no way you could take one more second of… that it was too much and in its absolute desolation, you were left reeling as you tried to figure out a way to stop it, get out of it, or just do absolutely anything so you didn’t have to experience one more minute of it??
A friend of mine, D, had one of those labor and deliveries that we all pray will never happen to us. Her baby’s head was turned and literally ”stuck” in the birth canal after hours and hours of labor. The epidural that she was given to help alleviate the excruciating pain had somehow come unplugged, so she was left to experience every second of it. Afterwards she recalled reaching a point in the midst of it where she just knew, “This is it. I cannot go on any longer.” And when she was describing just how bad it was and how she had reached that place where she knew she couldn’t take it anymore… I remember another friend, who we will call MB, responding (in a way that only he could get away with), “What does that mean? What was the alternative?” Meaning, what other option did she have?
And that, my friends, is the crushing blow. There are no options. It might get better, it might stay the same, or it may even get worse, but time will still keep moving and there is no other way around what lies ahead… the only way is THROUGH it. And it is in our journey through that we find this profound invitation from the Lord.
Because you see, He too went through and not around. Jesus, though being in very nature God Himself, made Himself nothing, humbled Himself and became obedient to death, even death on a Cross. He suffered more than any man, before or since. He was beaten and scourged so much so that He was unrecognizable as a man. Yet He was God… unlike us, He had a choice to go above or around or any other way He wanted, but He chose to go through… Jesus chose the Cross.
Now if God went through and not around, where does that leave us?
Well… first and foremost, it means we are not alone. There is no pain too horrific, no loss too unimaginable, no depth too dark and impenetrable that Love hasn’t travelled the road before us. Love went to the abyss and death didn’t win… even the grave could not contain Him. He united Himself to us forever when He took on flesh and He invites us to know something of Himself even (and especially) as we travel down the terrifyingly dark alleyways life brings us. God chose to reveal the passion of His own heart in the way of the Cross, and the way to the Resurrection will always be through, never around, the Cross.
We also find each other at the foot of the Cross. We are bound one to another in our “human-ness.” Though our roads may look a bit different, we are all in the same boat. We’re not so different from each other… we’re all utterly human and vulnerable to the storms that rage around us. But that’s a different post…
His way also reveals the ‘other side.’ The joy that comes on Easter morning. There is a promise, a living Hope, set before us in that Day. Though we die a thousand deaths, death has forever lost its sting. Oh glorious Day… how I long for the rising of the Son and the end of this long night. But the darkest hour comes just before the dawn. The way from Palm Sunday to Easter is the way of suffering.
And so, it came in a dream – the answer to my reachings for the Lord in the midst of this crazy hard season. One night last week, I had a dream where I was in this desert and it was pitch black. I was laying with my face in the dirt (appropriately). And as I laid there, I started to hear the sound of these deep African drums and dark wind instruments. The music got louder and louder and I heard what sounded like a children’s choir singing “dance, dance, dancing in the dirge” until their voices seemed to lift me out of the dirt onto my feet. And just as I took my first step into a dance, I woke up. I woke up with a new understanding…
Somewhere in this rubble and mass of stone, there lives a dancer. Though right now, it is hard to see… maybe no one knows except the Sculptor that she’s even there… but what He sees is all that matters. The path toward freedom comes as I surrender myself to the Hands of the Master. I have before me this incredible invitation to travel with Him through the way of Love that I would not miss its heights and depths. And what I am discovering is that the Dancer dances even now. Here in the midst of mourning is where I find my first steps… it is here in the dirge that I am learning the foundations of the dance as I surrender to His perfect leadership in each movement and with every breath.
Yet I must confess that even as I took my first steps, I found myself asking Him with fear in my heart… are You sure this is the way??
But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.”
Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Cor 12:9-10)
