Category: The Bible

My precious treasure
Christianity · encouragement · guidance · Jesus · lent · Prayer · searching · The Bible

My precious treasure

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Lent day 8

I rejoice in your word, like one who discovers a great treasure.

I saw this today on facebook. I didn’t look at which passage it was and now can’t find it so forgive me for that.
Treasure. What a strange thing it is. We covet treasure and search for it and cling to it. Treasure is something greatly cared for and longed for. We treasure our family. We treasure our spouse. But do we treasure God? Do we treasure His word? When you think of who you could not live without, where does God fall on that list? We played a game once as a family. If you could only keep three books that you owned which three would they be? My mom immidiately said the Bible, she knew that she needed the word of God above all else. Now imagine a world where the Bible meant death if you carried it, so you hid it under your clothes and shared it with great caution, but you kept it despite it’s dangers because you cherish it. Some people in other countries are forced to do this. People who will have the biggest mansions in Heaven, because they have loved God the most. I don’t know if that’s true, God probably gives the same mansion size to everyone, but I think it would be fair if God gave them more. We are so used to freedom that we don’t cherish it, but I fear a day is coming when we will have to hide our Bibles too. Will we? Do we treasure the word of God? Do we seek after it like a precious Jewel and write it on our hearts? Is God precious to you?

Don’t wait for the movie
Christianity · lent · The Bible

Don’t wait for the movie

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Lent devotional 6

Don’t wait for the movie.

(I do have a point to this so bear with my beggining example)
In re-reading the Fellowship of the ring I have been reminded of the saying, “I’ll just wait for the movie.” Using LOTR as my example, the movies were all good, but in comparison to the books they seem like sad rip offs. No offense intended. The books have so much more to them right down to the description of the clothes. On top of that there are many, many, many scenes in the movie that are twisted and contorted out of context and sequence, so you lose much of the story line and plot.
People treat the Bible in this same way, (not that I am placing the two on the same shelf. One is fact. One is fiction. One brings amusement. One brings life.)
People act like movies about the Bible, devotionals or writings on the Bible, novels involving the Bible and so on, are fine reolacements for the actual thing. Many of these are good, but they are not intended to replace the original manuscript. As CS Lewis once said, “these things are good supplements, but they don’t replace the actual food.” In this he was speaking of his own writings, saying that they are fine additional studies for the Bible but do not and can not replace the actual thing.
There are many good movies and even TV shows done around the Bible and I, along with many others, applaud them. But again we’re getting the problem of people using the shows and movies as a replacement for the word of God. And like how the Lord of the Rings movie took sections of the book and change them and even added to them for the movie, which took away from great parts of the actual book, these movies on the Bible do the same thing. There is nothing wrong with that, as long as people remember that they are just creativly licensed copies and that there is still a need in their lives for the actual book it’s self.
Don’t wait for the movie. You’ll be missing out on the wonder and truth of the Book.

Disclaimer:
I am in no way criticizing or condemning these movies and TV shows. I believe they are good, and that we are blessed to have them. I also encourage you to rent and buy good movies and TV shows on the Bible as they will be a pleasent addition to your walk with God. My point is simply that they are not a replacement for the Bible itself.

Lent day 3 Stop putting your chains back on.When Jesus died and rose again He took our sins on Himself, He set us free from our chains- so why do we keep setting the locks back in place? We claim our sin as our identity, we tattoo it on our arms (or on our foreheads) we announce it with pride, yet it is what is killing us; it is holding us back, tying us down, and making us defeated. Those sins are nailed to the cross, stop tearing them off and sticking them back on yourself, you deserve more, you deserve better. You are loved so much more by Jesus who says to cast your sins aside than you will ever be by the devil who says to keep your sins and to wear them proudly, in fact mr. Do what makes you happy not what the Bible tells you to, aka the devil, doesn’t love you at all. The devil hates you. That’s why he encourages your sins. Jesus loves you. That’s why He tells you to leave your sins behind. Jesus set you free. So be free. Stop being a slave to the devil. Be a redeemed, set free, undefeated, friend of God. For He called you by name.
Christianity · Devotional · dreams do come true · encouragement · free · guidance · Jesus · lent · Love · searching · still fighting · The Bible · True Joy

Lent day 3 Stop putting your chains back on.When Jesus died and rose again He took our sins on Himself, He set us free from our chains- so why do we keep setting the locks back in place? We claim our sin as our identity, we tattoo it on our arms (or on our foreheads) we announce it with pride, yet it is what is killing us; it is holding us back, tying us down, and making us defeated. Those sins are nailed to the cross, stop tearing them off and sticking them back on yourself, you deserve more, you deserve better. You are loved so much more by Jesus who says to cast your sins aside than you will ever be by the devil who says to keep your sins and to wear them proudly, in fact mr. Do what makes you happy not what the Bible tells you to, aka the devil, doesn’t love you at all. The devil hates you. That’s why he encourages your sins. Jesus loves you. That’s why He tells you to leave your sins behind. Jesus set you free. So be free. Stop being a slave to the devil. Be a redeemed, set free, undefeated, friend of God. For He called you by name.

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Stop putting your chains back on.
When Jesus died and rose again He took our sins on Himself, He set us free from our chains- so why do we keep setting the locks back in place? We claim our sin as our identity, we tattoo it on our arms (or on our foreheads) we announce it with pride, yet it is what is killing us, it is holding us back, tying us down, and making us defeated. Those sins are nailed to the cross, stop tearing them off and sticking them back on yourself, you deserve more, you deserve better. You are loved so much more by Jesus who says to cast your sins aside than you will ever be by the devil who says to keep your sins and to wear them proudly, in fact mr. Do what makes you happy not what the Bible tells you to, doesn’t love you at all. The devil hates you. That’s why he encourages your sins. Jesus loves you. That’s why He tells you to leave your sins behind. Jesus set you free. So be free. Stop being a slave to the flesh. Be a redeemed, set free, undefeated, friend of God. For He called you by name.

Lent day 2
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Lent day 2

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Even the little concerns

Lent day 2
Today needed a photo, and if I’m honest I’m not sure everyone will get is being said in this one because this understanding of God is something we all struggle with.
God cares. Hang on, don’t roll your eyes, I know we have all heard this term missused and misrepresented. Just (as my new yoga teacher would say) breathe into it for a moment. God cares about you. Every tiny, crazy, dumb problem; every monumental catastrophe, He cares.
My example may sound odd but give me a chance.
You see that guy in the photo below? That’s my horse. He’s been my horse for over a decade. We have had big crazy dreams, big crazy failures and many learning moments. I’ve been worried about him lately. It’s been really cold (though he usually prefers that) and he has been acting odd. Distant. Even a little aggressive. I checked him over and he’s physically fine, so I chalked it up to the cold air and waited. Then it warmed up and nothing changed. Now I’m concerned and on with horse behaivior experts trying to see if something is wrong on the inside. With a little work on a few bad habbits his aggressive attitude faded away, but he was still playing shy with me. It felt like something I should deal with myself, I have trained horses for several years, I should be able to solve this on my own. Yet I was worried about him, and a little sad to see him acting that way toward me who loves him so much. So I prayed. I’ll admit my prayer began along the lines of “sorry to bother you with this God,” because like I said, it didn’t seem like a big thing, just something that was bothering me. Skip to today. I’m out in my yard, my horse comes right up to me, which he hasn’t done for the past several weeks, his ears are pricked but I give him some space and let him do his own thing. His own thing turned out to be following me around the yard, wanting to be close to me even though I had no treats, nuzzling my hair and being his normal self. It was so nice to realize that God wasn’t bothered by my odd, seemingly unimportant request. I know this story was long, and most people probably can’t relate to it, my point here is that no matter how silly your request seems, even if you feel like you should be able to deal with the problem yourself, even if you’re worried that God will see it as too small for his power, He still cares, it’s never too small of a problem for God. We get it into our heads that God likes big flashy miracles, but don’t forget that God was not in the Wind, He was in the whisper. Ask Him. No matter how silly small or unimportant it seems, bring it to God and watch for him to make things better. Like a loving father He’s never ashamed to kiss and  bandage our scrapes.

Lent day 1
Christianity · CS Lewis · dreams do come true · encouragement · Jesus · lent · Love · power of God · searching · still fighting · The Bible · True Joy

Lent day 1

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Be not cast down

“But do not be cast down.” Said Aslan, “evil will come of that evil, but I will see that the worst of it falls upon myself.” -The Magician’s nephew.
I don’t really need to say it. Maybe all that needs to be done is to change one word here:
Jesus
“But do not be cast down.” Said Aslan, “evil will come of that evil, but I will see that the worst of it falls upon myself.”

(Don’t forget that CS Lewis himself claimed Aslan as a reflection of Jesus, so every moment with the lion has a great meaning.)
Evil came. People weren’t created evil, we were created in the image of God. Yet evil was here. Long before there were any people anywhere, jealousy grew in the heart of one of God’s angels, and evil crawled it’s way into existance. Yet God saw all this coming, why didn’t He stop it? I have no idea. Some may theorize about it, but I am not so bold, I try not to touch what I don’t understand lest I confuse someone else also. But God saw this evil coming and Jesus knew He was going to bear the worst of it Himself in order to save us. The crazy part is that God would want to save us! He could just make new people, start everything from scratch, yet He already loved us. He still loves us, and it breaks His heart when we fall away, because He loves us so much that He sacrificed His most precious treasure to save us. We mean so much to Him that it’s hard to believe, yet it’s true.
As We Begin Lent let us remember why we have the freedom to Lent, a reason to Lent, and why lent begins and ends. It begins in Jerusalem, it climaxes at the cross, and it ends at an empty tomb.

The wicked lies of the devil lead to death
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The wicked lies of the devil lead to death

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The devil has been lying since the beggining. It’s one of the things he’s good at. He lies about your value, he lies about your identity, he lies about God, but he most often lies about himself. He pretends to be good, kind and loving. He pretends to be cool and exciting. He uses words like equality and acceptance, and shared power and universal unity, but he doesn’t mean it. In the end, those who follow him will never feel equal, accepted, powerful or unified. Because he is the ordinator of lowlyness, seperation, weakness and devision. He uses words from people that make it sound like if you follow his path you will be going down a good and kind route, but you aren’t. He makes God sound like He is judgemental, inconsiderate and unaccepting. So what does he do to replace God? he replicates Him, he makes a new version that is labeled with acceptance and understanding and equality, yet this false god lacks everything the original had. For starters it’s fake and God is real. Second, it has no authority, no power, it’s just there incase you need someone to pray to. Third, it has no rules, hence the accepting and understanding part. And of course it isn’t higher or greater than anyone, hence the equality part, because we as people can never be equal with the true God. And people come to this puppet god, they believe in it and worship it and call themselves Christians, thinking they have a found an easier to follow version of Jesus. Yet they have found the devil in disguise. The devil’s biggest lie is that he cares about you. He doesn’t. You will never rule in hell, you will never have authority in the devil’s realm, why? Because he wants to be the ruler, the king, he wants equality with God and that’s why he was thrown out of Heaven. You will never gain all the devil has promised you, he will only give you enough to keep you coming back, never more. God is not unaccepting. He accepts us as we are, then His love changes us. We don’t change first and then find Jesus, we can’t change without Him. Yes, He does not accept our sins -any of our sins- but He died so that we can come to him sins and all, and he will purify us and set us free from them. Yes God is intollerant to sin. He wouldn’t be God if He wasn’t, but He loves us enough to take us as we are and to help us change. God considers us everyday. He is so considerate of us that He forgives us. He knew we would sin, so He always made a way out, first with sacrifices, then with the sacrifice of His son, because of that we can now sacrifice our old selves and become new creations in Christ. All of this was possible because God was and is thinking about us.
God judges our sin. Yes. But He gave us a solution in Jesus. We sin everyday, but God looks at the heart and mind and knows when we are trying to do better and knows when we are truly sorry.
The devil is conniving with his lies and makes them easy to accept and easy to follow. God is just and righteous in His truth, sometimes that is hard to accept and hard to follow. But one way leads to hell and the other to Heaven. Don’t follow the easy path. Seek after the true God. Pray and seek His heart, then you will be truly free and accepted by the one who loves you.

Starving
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Starving

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Starving

Have you ever been so hungry you felt like you were starving? I’ve seen animals get to the place where they eat plastic containers, because they once held food and still smelled like something you could eat. That’s starving. Our guest speaker last Sunday spoke on hunger. She asked: Are we hungry for God? Good question. We look around and see a world that is so hungry for God, but they don’t realize it, so they settle for anything that seems like it might satisfy that knotting and aching. Yet all they are eating is plastic that smells like food, it’ not real food. The only satisfaction for our pangs of hunger, is God. It may sound like a cliche, but reading your Bible and praying is truly the only way to satisfy the need. As the English say, we need to strap on the ole’ feed bag. We pick and nibble at God’s word and prayer, but do we get so into being with Him that we are willing to strap ourselves to Him? Do we set aside time and dedicate to reading the Bible and praying? Or do we just treat the filling of our hunger like a child with a bag of snacks, picking out some of what we like and then hiding the rest under the couch so we don’t have to eat it?
We are in a starving world, yet we don’t reach out and take from the only one who can satisfy us. His hand is open and ready to give to us, yet we play shy. Like my horse last night. I brought him out extra oats. But did he come and take them from me? Of course not. He tossed his head around and acted like I had nothing to offer him. Why? Because he was being a brat, he did take his feed eventually because he did want it, but he had to pretend like he didn’t, just for the sake of it. We know God has what we need, yet we refuse to take it from Him, we shake our heads and act like He has nothing to offer. The difference between God offering to us and us offering to someone, is that eventually we will give up and move on, but God will keep reaching out no matter how many times you reject him. I am so grateful for that character in him. So? As our guest speaker asked last week, are you hungry?

Palms laid before him
Devotional · encouragement · guidance · Jesus · lent · The Bible

Palms laid before him

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Lent devotional 35

Enter Jerusalem, the city streets are filled with celebrating and cheering as a humble and gentle donkey colt strides down the streets.
Palms are laid at the sweet animal’s feet and a sense of pride wells in the donkey’s heart. He is carrying Jesus, as all animals know Jesus is the king of kings, God’s one and only Son; but the donkey senses sonething, a feeling of pain in the heart of his Lord. The donkey is confused and turns his head to nuzzle the King’s foot, a gentle hand strokes the animal’s neck in response. The donkey stretches hard to see Jesus’ face. The beaming smile is a shock to the donkey because it can sense the sadness within the savior’s heart. All the gentle colt can do is continue to carry his Lord.
The animal saw both joy and sorrow and could not understand, but the joy was love for the King’s people, and the sorrow was knowledge that these people were only a breath away from condemning their King to die; but one small donkey showed his love and carried the weight of the savior as the savior carried the weight of the world.

Jesus was recorded as having great anguish as He neared Jerusalem. Anguish that simple human senses could barely begin to understand. To suffer is one thing, but to know you are about to suffer is another. If we saw the suffering that would come in our lives we as people could not handle it. Jesus knew every bit of His suffering to come and that caused Him greater pain than He would have experienced if it had all been a shock or surprise. Days of waiting are too much to bear, but He bore them for us. The false love of the people must have stung and the lies of Judas must have made His heart sick, but He suffered them all because He loves us. Oh what a love that is, who else could give such love? Who else would? Only Jesus loves us so much.

Credit to owner for image

Finding Jesus
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Finding Jesus

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Where is Jesus?

His knees ached as he prayed, he swung back and forth in agony as his soul searched for something, anything. Around him others prayed to their gods and the pain was clear in their mumbled as they searched for the same thing. A woman was kneeling beside him, a book clasped in her hands as she prayed silently, a dim smile spread across her face. He leaned over to her. ‘What god do you pray to?’
She whispered back, ‘I pray to Jesus.’
‘Oh, what is Jesus the god of?’
The woman thought a moment, ‘well, He’s the God of everything. There isn’t anything that He isn’t God over.’
‘Really? Who is He?’
‘He’s the one who died for you. He came to earth from Heaven and was sacrificed for our sins. Then He rose again and took deminion over death. Now we who love Him can join Him in Heaven.’
‘Interesting. How did you get to know Him?’
She began to answer but a rod came down with a crack between them, ‘no talking!’ The guard bellowed, ‘just do your worship and leave.’
The woman went back to her praying, the book clutched against her heart. The man looked around him, some people beat their heads and chests in anguish, some had knives and drew blood from their palms, some merely mumbled to themselves the same things the man had heard them say every time they had come, he looked at the statue of the god he was praying to, it seemed so indiferent to him to his needs, it never died for him, it didn’t care about him. Then he glanced at the woman again, she was smiling, then she laughed softly, she cried but it seemed like a happy cry. He glanced at the guard, the person had moved on. He leaned forward, ‘how do I contact her god? Do I need a sacrifice? She seems to have just come here. He whispered again to the woman.
‘How do I get to know your God?’
She grinned, ‘just talk to Him. Call Him by His name, Jesus, God, even Father.’
‘That’s it?’
She nodded. He began to pray, ‘um…Jesus. Are you there?’ Suddenly a wave sweapt over him. Peace. Fear of the power that surrounded him seized his soul, but the peace chased it away. Then he began to cry as another wave hit him. Love. It was sufficating and beautiful.
The guard rang the bell that said free time to worship was over. The man got up and saw the guard take the book from the woman as he collected all the religious items from the worshipers. He saw her stop herself from reaching after the book. She left. He left. But the feeling of her God didn’t leave him. It followed him as he went to his house. On the road he saw the woman again, he rushed over to her and she startled back from him.
‘Don’t be afraid. But I have to know. Why does it feel like your God is following me?’
She smirked, almost laughed and then said gently, ‘because He loves you.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes. He wants you and is with you wherever you go. I don’t have to attend the worship hour in the chamber to be near my God, He is always with me, I go because they keep the Bibles and I love holding His book in my hands.’
The man didn’t know what to say, the woman suddenly whispered, ‘guards coming.’ And dissapeared.
The man returned to his home, sat on his bed and said ‘Jesus. Are you here?’ The peace and love swept over him again and he decided that day that he would aim to get a Bible too during the allotted worship hour, then he could learn more about this God who clearly loved him. Now when he prayed he knew someone was listening and cared about what he had to say, now when he cried he knew someone was there to comfort him. Now he was loved. And had purpose, if that purpose was simply to worship the god called Jesus.
He never saw the woman again, but as he learned about Jesus and gave his life to Him he knew that some day he would meet the woman again in Heaven, and then he would thank her.