Fathers
Recently I was reminded of the times when my dad really stepped up for me. Times when I just couldn’t do it on my own. Today my dad, with an injured foot, carried my Kayak down to the water for me, walked my dog and loaded and unloaded our truck twice. And it’s Father’s Day. It should have been about him, but instead he took care of me. Why? Because that’s what dads do. Not all, but the good ones do. He’s always putting me first becuse he’s my daddy and he loves me. A good father reflects our Heavenly Father. God is always putting us first. He takes care of us. He forgives our sins and fixes our screw ups. We hurt Him and then run back to Him and He pulls us into His arms and tells us that we are His. He punishes us so we will do better and won’t end up in hell. He helps us because He wants us and loves us. He even sacrificed His only true son so that we, unworthy kids he took in out of love, would be able to see Him some day. God, who is the best Father, gives everything for us. Just like a great dad always does. A true Father mimics God in how He cares for His kids. Just as my dad cares for me.
Happy Father’s Day!
Category: Devotional
We all forget the green bead.
We all forget the green bead.
Gold-Heaven
Black-Sin
Red-Jesus
White-New Life
Green- ?
When we tell the story of Christ via the color beads we go through the story of sin keeping us from Heaven and Jesus dying so we are redeemed through Him and made new. But there’s a fifth bead. A color we ignore and don’t promote though it’s vital. Green is for growth. Growth in Christ. Too many people come to Jesus and then leave it at that. There’s no growth. No learning. Jesus isn’t a one and done situation. He’s alive and wants a relationship with you. But if you don’t spend time with Him and don’t seek Him, then when the world starts calling (or shouting) you don’t know the truth to stand on. That’s how we end up with falling away Christians or Christians who promote a fake religion that has anti-Biblical statements, not the true word of God. It all begins with not growing in Christ.
I could go on with a list of recent posts and YouTube links I have seen that claimed to be Christian but misused the word of God or quoted something as a Biblical fact that was very much not in the Bible. But the point is that these people either don’t know their Bibles, or are banking on you not knowing yours. How can we know what are lies and what are truth unless we read it for ourselves?
You say ‘I don’t have time to read my Bible.’ Well, you can either make time to learn for yourself or wait to be taught by false movements who claim to be Christian. If you don’t know your Bible you can’t tell who is real and who is the devil masquerading as one of us. We need to grow in Christ. We must learn so we are not deceived. Don’t forget the green bead.
Are you as alone as you think? No. Never. Jesus is right there feeling your pain and holding onto you through it.
Up till now he had been looking at the lion’s great front feet and the huge claws on them. Now in despair, he looked up at his face. What he saw surprised him as much as anytjing in hiw whole life, for the great tawny face was bent near his own, and wonder of wonders, there were great tears shining in the lion’s eyes. They were such big bright tears compared with Digorie’s own that for a moment he felt as if the lion must really be sorrier about his mother than he was himself.
How like Digory are we? We have brokenness and heart ache and worries that we think God doesn’t see or understand. Then in a moment of wonder and fear we look up and see God looking back, smiling, big tears in His eyes. There’s an old Petra song that says, “you care so much more than I do.” We forget that. God cares more about our broken hearts, our loved ones who are slipping away, our forgotten dreams, our lost jobs, then we ever could. We feel we are the ones suffering, yet everytime we break, so does He. Jesus took all our pain on Him, past- present- future. He feels it too, and like the ragman, He comes to us saying, “let me take your old rags and I’ll give you my new. Let me take your pain and loss and I will give you my healing.” He loves us and feels what we feel. We must stop forgetting that. We are never alone in our grief, we have Him and He loves us.
Road rage
Road rage
So you’re driving along and suddenly someone drives up beside you, makes a rude gesture and cuts you off. The red light goes off inside you and you are gone after the guy. Your truck chases his car. You roar your engine at him and make out like you plan to ram him a couple of times to teach him a lesson. Then the siren goes. The one pulled over giving her or his license to the cop… is you. Was the rage really worth it? No. Because the rude person who made a point to be a creep to you had no idea that you were trying to get back at him. He couldn’t hear you yelling names, he might not even have noticed you chasing him down. And in the end, your the one with the fine. Life is like that. Someone hurts you or makes you mad and you spend too much time wondering how to get back at that person. Sometimes you even later realize that you have done the same thing to others at one time. All your internal road rage does is make you have a headache and cause you to sin. Let it go. Not because it helps the person your mad at, they probably don’t know that they have done anything wrong, let it go for you. For your relationship with God and others. Drop the rope.
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Have we missed it?
North America, have we missed the time of God’s coming?
Just as Jesus said to Jerusalem “If you had only known what would bring you peace, I can’t help but wonder if we have also become a nation that Jesus weeps over? But we have fallen so far and so hard. We celebrate sin and teach evil to our children, we turn our backs on what is right and say to Jesus that we don’t want Him to he our king we would rather be our own heros and masters. Just as Jesus said in His parable about the Minas (a parable we don’t tend to quote) “those who did nothing with what I gave them will have all taken from them, but those who rejected me as King, bring them before me and slay them at my feet.” (This is a bit of a paraphrase because the verse is long. See Luke 19: 11)
We hear too often the statement that real Christians don’t beat people down with the Bible but that we need to show love only. We are loving people right into he’ll by not teaching the truth. If people feel beaten by true Biblical teaching (not personal opinions) that means they have something in their lives that needs to change; in truth, we should all have sections of the Bible that make us feel like we are being accused, and that make us feel uncomfortable and unworthy, because we all have stuff in our lives that separates us from God, stuff we need to change. We are never going to be worthy of God, but that’s why Jesus had to sacrifice Himself, because we couldn’t make it on our own. That doesn’t mean that we can do whatever we want, we must grow and change as we draw closer to Him- we can’t simply accept the Minas and think that’s enough. When I was a kid we were always told, ‘read your Bible and pray everyday.’ It got to be a catch phrase. But that is how we grow what we have been given. Tithing and volunteer work. Mowing your neighbor’s lawn. Dedicating your life to missions. Little things for some of us and big things for others are ways to grow what we have been given. God gives much to those who are going to give out much, little to those who will give out little, nothing to those who give out nothing and to those who reject Him He will give death. This isn’t a cuddly, happy topic. But sometimes we need the tough stuff to be said because we need to get back on the right track. I don’t want to be a nation, a city or a person who Jesus weeps over. I want to be a good and faithful servant, though I know I’m not many days and that I fail often. The point is. Do you love Him enough to keep trying? Are you working at growing your relationship, your Minas? Or are you letting it sit and become stagnant as our world goes by having missed the coming of God to us?
Scripture:
As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.” Luke 19
Mother, you are important just the way you are!
Mother, you are important just the way you are.
I had the misfortune of seeing a movie the other day that delt with a mom who suddenly decided to go after a career instead of raising her child. There’s nothing wrong with a mom going after a career, that part wasn’t the problem. The problem was that she chose to do this because her sister told her that a woman who was satisfied with being nothing more than a mother was underachieving. In that moment my mind went, ‘I see now. That’s where it began.’ The falling apart of the country’s fabric I mean. Women are now told that it’s no longer okay to be happy just being a mommy, if that’s your dream as a little girl you’ll get shot down as not stretching yourself enough. This is false. We need our moms in this and every country. We need them as moms. Having a job too is fine, but if all you’ve ever been and all you’ve ever wanted to be was a mom there is nothing wrong with that; in fact, you’ve chosen one of the hardest, most underappreciated, and totally unpaid positions out there. But you chose it because you are special. You didn’t just want a baby to play with and then you’re done and want your own life, you wanted to be someone’s mentor, caretaker, teacher, and friend. You chose a job where someone else’s life is always put before yours. A job where you are solely responsible for guiding and maintaining another human being. You have chosen to be more than just another money seeking career woman. You have chosen to be someone who gains nothing but the love of a child and never gets payment nor awards. Except perhaps a paper cut out of a ribbon with a misspelled ‘#1 mom’ written on it, and if you are like my mom then that paper cut out ribbon is more precious to you than any golden trophy could be. You are amazing mothers, just the way you are! Don’t feel like you are less because you chose a job that leaves you without a pension. Don’t feel small because you wear old holy soles instead of seven inch high heels. Don’t forget that God designed women to be mothers. Not all choose that path and some God plans to be His workers in a different direction then motherhood and that’s fine. But we must never look down on those who have been chosen to fulfill the role of mommy. Being a mother to your child makes God smile, because you are following His plan. The world needs strong, praying mothers. Don’t doubt the importance of your role! We need you.
Happy Mother’s day! 😊
Jeremiah
Jeremiah
“I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as my prophet to the nations.”
“O Sovereign Lord,” I said, “I can’t speak for you! I’m too young!” The Lord replied, “Don’t say, ‘I’m too young,’ for you must go wherever I send you and say whatever I tell you. And don’t be afraid of the people, for I will be with you and will protect you. I, the Lord, have spoken!”
Jeremiah 1:5-8 NLT
Jeremiah is such a perfect example of someone threshing weat in the wine press, except he was in the wine press emotionally. He wasn’t depressed or anything, but he looked around and saw all these great men of God who happened to be older, probably much older, than himself and he did what we all do when we look around instead of looking up- he saw his inadequate state. God says to do something and we look at the other people doing the same thing or similar things, and we realize that compared to them we don’t have the same level of: schooling, training, strength, courage, popularity, Talent, and so on. But then God reminds us: ” you must go where I send you and do as I tell you, and do not be afraid of them for I will protect you.”
It isn’t about what we think we can do or what we feel we are qualified for. It’s about what God knows we can do and what He qualifies us for through His power. No matter our schooling or our skill we are all inadequate for the task before us unless we have God helping us. Oh sure we might succeed on our own, but it will always be more difficult or lead to less of a great conclusion then it would have been if we had just let God use us the way that He planned to. We may all be in the wine press emotionally on some level for something, but God has a plan for all of us, one that is unique and individual to each person. When God calls you out of the wine press follow His voice. And don’t be afraid of them, for God will protect you.
Jude
Jude
This will end our four part ‘in the wine press’ series. Feel free to go back over the last three weeks to see where it all began in Gideon, to where we are now, near the end of the Bible in one of my favorite books- Jude.
In the wine press spiritually. Jude’s past right to the dating of his book and the argued over intended audience is… speculative. However, as one of my Theology Professors once said: even with legitimate doubt about the dating of Jude, a terminus a quo and terminus ad quem should be possible. What we do know for fact is that Jude was Jesus’ brother. We also know the struggle that Jesus’ brothers had with accepting Him as Messiah. Jude would have been a Jewish man who attended synagogue and learned his Torah and more than likely prayed to God. He was doing the physical acts of being one of God’s chosen people, like everyone else, but like most of the others around him he didn’t yet have a personal relationship with God- which comes through Jesus. [Now I’m going to peel away from Jude himself because, as I said before, we don’t know as much about him as we would like and I don’t wish to go on about things I’m not sure about.]
So many of us our in the wine press spiritually. On the outside we are threshing away after the harvest, doing the work we are supposed to do, yet on the inside we are in the wine press, which is not where we are supposed to be. We look like we are fully committed to Jesus, yet we still don’t have a relationship with Him. Going to Church and reading the Bible are fundamental in your Christian life, yet if you think these acts without having accepted Jesus as you savior will get you into Heaven you haven’t been paying attention to what you have read or heard. We need Him first and foremost. We need these other things that connect us to Him for sure, but they don’t mean anything if Jesus is not at our core and theirs. Bibles and Churches that have been stripped of their intended meaning and purpose to leave us with an all loving, all accepting, all roads lead to Heaven bad taste in our mouths are not going to help your Spiritual growth or your connection to Jesus, (which Jude warns against in his book). After accepting the sovereignty of Jesus, Jude became a student of the man who founded the first church – James. It would have been so hard for Jude and James to let go of the image of Jesus they had in their minds and to instead grasp the wonder of who He truly was. If my relative suddenly claimed to be God’s son I’d be checking his cup to see what he was sipping. But Jesus proved Himself again and again and we know He is God. But until you accept that and accept that you need Him as your savior no amount of Church attendance will save you. Once we get out of the spiritual wine press and start doing things the right way maybe we will have the courage and faith to say “I —- a slave of Jesus Christ,” just like Jude did.
Reflection
The moon has a dark side that is void of rhe sun’s light. But the sun has no dark side because it is the light. We have darkness in us because we have places that we don’t let Jesus into. These sides rise up and make the world doubt the goodness of Christ because His Christians aren’t perfect. But Jesus is the light and the good inside of us, He has no darkness or badness. We will always mess up no matter how hard we try to be like our Savior because we are flawed humans. But we are only a reflection of Jesus, not Jesus Himself and He does not possess our inclination toward sin. You can’t judge the sun’s warmth by standing in the dark, you have to feel it for yourself. You can’t judge Christ by Christians, we’re only a reflection and mess up, you have to experience Jesus for yourself to see how wonderful He truly is.
Carried in the cross 