Luke 1:7, 11-17 ESV
[7] But they had no child because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years.
[11] And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. [12] And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him. [13] But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. [14] And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, [15] for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or a strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. [16] And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, [17] and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.”
Before the dove and the voice of God. Before the imprisonment. Before the beheading. There was a prophecy. John fully fulfilled the prophecy of the angel. We have prophecies in the Bible we are still waiting to be fulfilled. We are still waiting for the day when they come to pass. In the waiting we, like Zachariah, may doubt the word of the Lord. But we must not doubt. Not because God will strike us mute for nine months, but because we are not people who have seen the angels face to face, our doubt can turn into something serious and terrible, we can turn away from God. It’s hard not to doubt when a prayer is a long time in being answered, or a prophecy seems to be impossible, but that is why we have faith. We choose to trust. We choose to not believe the lies in our head and the lies of those around us. We hold to faith. We wait on the prophecies of Jesus returning for us. We wait and watch and hope, knowing that the same God who fulfilled the impossible prophecies of the past, will also fulfill the prophecies of the future. Our Wiseman we follow this lent season is searching after a prophecy, one he has searched after for thirty years. Yet, he refuses to give up, because he knows in his heart that he is searching for life, for truth, for the King, for the Messiah, for Jesus.
Category: dreams do come true
Blessing too heavy
We often refer to Jesus as being in the boat and not letting the boat sink. In reference to the time when Jesus was asleep in the back of the boat during the big storm.
However, there is another painting involving Jesus and a boat.
When Jesus caused the nets of the disciples to fill to overflowing. In that instance, Jesus being in the boat (or at least close by) kept the boat from sinking from the blessings, not the storm. My mom often says do not allow your blessings to become your burdens. The fact is, our blessings are sometimes more than we can handle, and we feel like we are going to sink. When Jesus is in our boat, he will never permit us to sink. Even if we feel we are sinking from blessings, Jesus knows what our blessings entail. He knows the effort that has to go into them. When Jesus filled the nets of the disciples, he knew that there was help close by to help Peter and Andrew pull the fish in because they were afraid that the fish we’re going to capsize the boat. It is easy for your blessings to become burdens due to the simple fact that blessings don’t come without effort. There’s always something you have to put into them. But Jesus is there in the boat with you and he will help guide you. He will not let the boat roll over. He will get you through, and once you can finally haul your blessings in, you will rejoice at what God has done.
How many times
How many times has God heard me say, “I can’t go on! I am so scared.”? More times than most who know me would imagine. Fear is such a constant thing in this life. Recently, my dog started stress chewing his feet. They are raw, and I have to stop him when I see him doing this. Why does he do this? Because we have had anxiety in our household, and he reacts with a stress release. The thing is, if we don’t turn to God when fear or anxiety hits, we will turn to something else. It might be harmless like chocolate or something dangerous to our health or spiritual health. To turn to Jesus means to face the fear head on, and none of us want to do that. To give it to God means to talk about it with Him, it means letting Him know how we feel and that involves acknowledging those feelings. If we don’t turn to Jesus, we will fall into a dark place. Turning to Jesus is turning toward the light. So many things stress us out and scare us. Exams, a scary boss, a health problem, financial issues. Go ahead, Add to that list, I’m sure there are plenty are more that could be brought up. There was an old song, I believe Andrea Crouche wrote it, it said ‘give them all to Jesus. Shattered dreams, ruined hearts, broken toys. Give them all to Jesus and He will turn your sorrow into joy.’ It hurts and scares us sometimes, just going through this life, but the answer is not to find a paw to chew, we need to turn to Jesus and let Him show us the answers that He has planned.
I feel…. but.. it’s Christmas
Dear friends. Christmas is a time when we feel all the feels, and I mean ALL! We feel happy and sad and stressed and at peace because Christmas reminds us of what we love and who we have lost over the years. Just now, I almost cried because an image of a dog came onto my phone, and it was one of my Nana’s favorite breeds, and suddenly, I missed her. Why am I saying this? Because it’s okay to feel. Feel all of it and then let it go. The thing that makes that tangible and important is making sure that you don’t feel alone. Feel those feelings with Jesus. Rest in His embrace and let Him heal you. Panic comes, but Jesus calms the storms. Pain happens, but our Lord is healer. We have lost… sometimes more than we can bear, but God has prepared a home in Heaven. We feel peace at Christmas because the light of the world came. His angel said, “Fear not.” Jesus said, “peace I leave with you.” Why? Because He knew who we are. It hurts sometimes. We see no light at the end of the tunnel. But God. It will always be Jesus who shows us the way. We may think we cannot do it. But all things are possible through Him. Don’t feel guilty about having all the Feelings at Christmas. Just make sure you leave those feelings in the hands of the Messiah.
He is I Am part 2
The most high God. I love this. We get so caught up in our human problems that we become so stressed that many of us have ulcers. It’s as though we are making bread, and we can’t get it to rise. Why would that be? Because we forgot an important ingredient. Bread without yeast will not rise, and problems without God are tragedies. Without God, we have no solution. We have no one to go to. As Christians, we have God. He is there with His arms open, ready to take you into them. But we get so caught up with our problems that we forget to go to Jesus. We leave Him out of the recipe.
In Genesis, we find this name of God. Elyon.
Genesis 14:19-20 ESV
[19] And he blessed him and said, “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; [20] and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand!” And Abram gave him a tenth of everything.
God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth. We forget that God is Most High. He possesses Heaven and Earth. We forget that we are small creatures compared to our big God. God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand. God can and will deliver our enemies into our hands if only we will surrender to Him. Revival is not when people eventually find God. It’s when people finally stop fighting Him and let Him love them. God Most High will deliver your enemies into your hand if only you will give the battle to Him! God Most High who owns both heaven and earth wants to love you. He wants to help you. When hard times come, we let stress come over us, and we forget that God is part of our fight, He is the most important part of our recipe. God is El- Elyon.
What am I thankful for
1 Thessalonians 5:18-19 ESV
[18] give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. [19] Do not quench the Spirit.
Thankfulness isn’t always about being happy. It’s not always a time of rejoicing for something good. Sometimes, being thankful is simply a breath after you have been holding your breath for a long time. Sometimes, it’s a soft smile after you realize you made it one step further because God has helped you. Sometimes, it’s filled with tears of pain or exhaustion or worry, and you simply cry out with a deviance against the circumstance. “Thank you, Jesus! Because greater is He who is in me, than he who is in the world.” Being thankful is a war cry against pain and discouragement. Being thankful is saying, ‘My God will supply!’ When there is nothing on the table. Being Thankful is saying,’The same God who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will get me through this.’ When the waters are rising and you see no way out. Being thankful has nothing to do with circumstance. Being thankful has to do with who Jesus is and who you are within him.
The flame passes on
2 Kings 2:9-11, 15 NIV
[9] When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Tell me, what can I do for you before I am taken from you?” “Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit,” Elisha replied. [10] “You have asked a difficult thing,” Elijah said, “yet if you see me when I am taken from you, it will be yours—otherwise, it will not.” [11] As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind.
[15] The company of the prophets from Jericho, who were watching, said, “The spirit of Elijah is resting on Elisha.” And they went to meet him and bowed to the ground before him.
There is a song from the 80s that speaks of the flame passing on. Some may not be fully sure what that means. Let me explain. The flame passing on is the mantle passing on, the mantle that God placed upon the heads of his Saints. The mantle of God’s presence of God’s love and of God’s strength. When a saint dies we want their mantle the pass on. Saint does not mean some Heavenly being an Earthly form, saint s those of us who are blessed enough by God to be one of his workers. We all have a mantle that we pass on in a way. But the mantle that God passes is a handcrafted metal of his authority that he is left with us.
Elisha knew what the mantle Eljiah carried was worth. He knew that the Spirit of God resting on the Elijah was the greatest inheritance you could receive. Now. If Elisha had not been worthy in God’s eyes He would not have permitted Elisha to gain the double portion, but Elisha shared a similar love for God as Elijah.
Elijah and Elisha both faced difficult times. Times brought on them because of their mantle. The mantle of God gives you strength and protection, but those in sin will hate seeing you in it and will come after you because of it. Thankfully, in this age we won’t be hunted to death by crazed queens or Pharoahs, but we might have people call us names on the internet. Elijah laughed in the faces of the servants of the devil and taunted them as he watched God bring them to their knees. Do we have that kind of faith? Do we know in our hearts that God will save us from darkness?
We stand in the face of anyone and anything if God stands with us. Do you ask Him to be your strength and mantle? If not, you are fighting a battle alone that you cannot win by yourself. Seek Him. Find Him. Never let go of Him. He is all you need.
Bridges
We are all walking along a long, wood plank bridge. A chasm stretches out under us and as we strain past the lurch in our stomachs to see the bottom we find that all we see are the tops of whispy clouds. A gust of wind blows and the bridge sways, causing us to grasp the sides and close our eyes.
But who made the bridge? Where did it come from? It is the only way to travel unless you go back, and you know that you can’t go back. Someone must have built it.
The bridge is the path we follow. God made it. It began in Genesis 1:1. Then came the snake in the garden and pieces were lost from the bridge. But God would not let our path to Him be fully destroyed so He made a way. He was always making a way everytime we broke a part of the bridge. But those sections that were replaced were quickly old news as a new section was destroyed. It was never enough. So finally God made a stability chord that ran the length of the bridge from one end to the other. A chord that could not be broken. A chord that looks very much like a cross.
People still break sections out of the bridge, but the chord holding the bridge to the other side will never be broken.
Now that the chord is there to keep the way secure God let’s the travelers repair the broken slots. Where the world has thrown a rock that breaks a plank from the path and creates a pitfall, God has provided is with the way to repair the hole. The deciples began by reinforcing the rope sides and adding stable blocks that connect the path to the chord. But people have tried to break away those blocks. They have tried to destroy everything that connects the path to the chord, to Jesus who is the stabilizer and strength and hope and purpose of every path. They knew they couldn’t break the chord, they could never destroy Jesus. So they have tried to destroy everything that connects to Him and leads to Him. But we as Christians have the task of repairing all that the world has destroyed. We wear our tool belts as we walk this narrow way. When we see a hole in the bridge or a Crack in the bonds, we kneel down and take out our tools. The Bible has equipped us with all we need on our journey, not only to help ourselves but also to help others.
As we repair the places where people have tried to destroy the path we kneel on sections already repaired by others, knowing that someday someone will step on the repair we have made and find it solid.
We are all sojourners together and the devil attacks us all in different ways making pit falls in our path, but God has given us the blessing of each other. We pray for each other, guide each other and help each other, even if all we do is quietly hold hands in the presence of Jesus. Sometimes we can’t fight the wind. Sometimes we have fallen through the cracks and cannot pull ourselves back up. Sometimes our questions and doubts are too loud. But Jesus is the chord stabilizing our path and our walking companions on the road are there to repair the gaps and to take our wrists and pull us to safety.
You may never see how the work you have done for Jesus has blessed or helped others, but nothing you do for Him is ever a waste. Keep repairing the wounds and the gaps and the needs in the path before you. Someday, someone will be able to keep going because of what you have left behind for them.
God always keeps His promises
God always keeps His promises.
Genesis 8:6-12 NIV
[6] After forty days Noah opened a window he had made in the ark [7] and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth. [8] Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. [9] But the dove could find nowhere to perch because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark. [10] He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. [11] When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth. [12] He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him.
I love ravens. I love ravens because of my friend ravens who live in our yard and I love them because of the raven on the ark. No one ever remembers the raven. We all like to smile and think of the dove. The dove is lovely and soft and small. The dove brought back the branch to Noah. Everyone remembers the dove.
But what about the raven? Ravens are big and black and people call them omens of bad luck and accuse them of making terrible screeching. But really, ravens are blue and black and purple. They don’t mean bad or good luck. They make many sounds, some are very beautiful, and they will talk with you if you speak to them. They follow people the like. And as Phallen (my dog) found out, they will chase those they don’t appreciate. Most importantly, a raven was the first bird sent out from the ark. But because it was not time yet, it did not find anything. Due to that, it is forgotten. (Also recalling that the dove took several tries before it found land)
When we have been waiting a really long time for something amazing to happen, something God has promised and it keeps not happening, we lose hope. We eventually give up and move on and leave our dream behind us. We forget the raven. We chase doves that fly around with answers in their beaks and never remember the raven again. Until one day. The raven found nothing to bring back because it wasn’t time. But eventually he too got to fly over green fields and feed on olive trees. God will bring us to shore. If He has promised it, then it will come to pass. We just have to wait on His timing. The dove’s time came sooner than the raven’s, but the raven’s time was on its way. He just had to be patient. So do we.
Trusting God is hard. Especially when all you see around you is water, but His promises are true. And then, a rainbow.
Genesis 9:13, 15-16 NIV
[13] I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.
[15] I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. [16] Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”
The rainbow has lost it’s meaning in society. But you will often find a rainbow in the church. On a wall in the Sunday school usually. Why? Because the story of Noah is amazing and a favorite for many. More importantly it’s because the rainbow was and is the sign of God’s judgement followed by His grace. He destroyed the earth because of its sin. But He would not destroy it completely because He still had one man who served Him with all His heart. Rainbows in the skies show God’s promises are true.
They always have been.
So when things are dark. Turn on your headlamp and follow Jesus.
When the answers seem impossible, keep marching and blow your horn!
When the water swells around you and the raven is still flying back and forth finding nothing, wait for your ark to hit land.
When you doubt because of the storm, look for the Rainbows because God keeps His promises. Trust Him.
The body – part 6
Luke 24:3 NIV
[3] but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
This. This right here. They entered the tomb but did not find the body of Jesus. Why? Because He had risen. Jesus rose as He said He would.
Have you ever lost something? You know you put it right there. Yet when you go back it’s gone.
The deciples knew they had left Jesus’s body in that tomb. They knew that it took a good four, strong men to roll the stone away. Yet, there the stone was, and there Jesus was not.
It must have taken a long time for the deciples to wrap their heads around that one. He was there. Now He wasn’t. The ladies had told them that there was an angel (mistaken for a gardener) who told them that Jesus had risen as He said He would and to go tell the others, but to accept that. To look and go. Huh, he really isn’t here. You know where you left Him, He was in a safe place right? No way He could go missing. But now He’s gone.
I know I’m making this a little funny. But I can just see the perplexed looks on the faces of Peter and John. I can see them stare at the tomb, then each other, then back at the tomb.
The crucifixion was so horrible that they were still raw. Nothing could cleanse that pain. And then Jesus’s body dissappears. They saw Him dead. They mourned Him. They were still mourning. Now. How do they recall Christ’s words and joy in His return? First. They must have been so very confused.
Then Jesus comes and shows Himself. We have the upper room, we have the road to Damascus, we have several places Jesus appeared to show, “Yes I am alive.”
Then just as the deciples got their feet under them, Jesus ascends to Heaven. Never again in this world would they touch Him or laugh with Him. But God.
Jesus sent His Holy Spirit do the deciples and now we, can know Him better and serve Him through His own Spirit.
The body is gone guys. I know people still search for it, wanting to find it, wanting to prove that it’s still there. But as the angel said, “He is not here, He has risen. Just. As. He. Said. He. Would.”
As we end this series I want us to remember the journey. Because we followed part of Jesus’s journey. We are always walking slowly on a path following the cross. Because, of we aim for the cross, if we aim for Jesus. We get all we have ever dreamed of, simply by having Him.
Carried in the cross 