Category Archives: In the Word

a deep drink from the humility well and keeping the realms straight

poor“The Spirit of the Lord God is on Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to bring good news to the poor.” – Luke 4:18 / Isaiah 61:1

Yesterday, I spent a good part of my day drinking deep. Sitting right here, in my favorite spot, listening to worship music and reading scripture. I happened on Isaiah 61 and I heard Him whisper something. It was faint, but I heard it.

The Gospel is only good news to the poor.

And just like that, He cracked open my heart and I saw how deprived of poverty it had become, how much self-sufficiency was being masked by spiritual maturity. I saw and I wept.

Because spiritual poverty is what makes the good news good. 

Twenty-seven years have passed since Jesus found me (I did not find Him. He was never lost.) and here is the truth that I am prone to forgetting…I am still as poor today as I was that first day.

Because twenty-seven years later, I still can’t do one thing to be right with God on my own. I still can’t earn His grace, or cover my own sin. I have not arrived. My hands are still empty. I am impoverished to the core of me. I can’t even obey Him without Him. I just start thinking I can. And when self-sufficiency rises up under the mask of maturity, bad things happen.

accusationMy finger starts to point at other people. People who are poor like me, but for some reason, they should know better. A harshness slips in and quietly asks compassion to leave. Grace becomes a given to me, but not from me. Rules become far more important than people, love is something that must be earned, and God is pleased with me but not with you.

When I forget that I am poor, it breathes life into the Pharisee in me.

And then God invited me to drink humility in deep. To drink in good news that is still good.

To consider my own poverty again. To find grace amazing still. To remember that I am a saint, chosen, sanctified by God, redeemed by Christ, part of the family of God, gifted by the Holy Spirit, befriended by Jesus and loved by the Father, and that I am poor. I have no righteousness of my own. I have nothing in me with which to earn eternity.

Before the spirits of darkness, I have authority. I am to give no ground, make no compromise, wielding the sword of the Spirit without mercy. Before the enemy of my soul, I must remember who I am because of Christ.

But not so before men. In earthly realms I am to be clothed in humility, full of compassion, honoring others above myself, turning my cheek, loving those who would do me harm. Before men, I must remember who I would be without Christ. I must remember that I am poor.

realms

Beloved, do not confuse the realms you walk in.

don’t look back

pillar of saltThey told her not to, but she did it anyway.

“But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.” Genesis 19:26

 We read the story, that one line that is her legacy, and we wonder “what was she thinking?”. What was back there that compelled her to look, to disobey? Home? Her place of comfort? The place where she had made plans and dreamed dreams?

Perhaps it was the same things that compel us to turn our heads and look behind us. Fear of the unknown. Longing for what was comfortable, familiar. Frustration, because we had made plans in the place behind us, we had dreams back there.

Or maybe we look back because, as bad as it was, it was all we knew. Because we can become quite attached to the pain of what is behind us. Even bondage can be preferable to freedom if freedom means walking into the unknown. The Israelites proved that when they continued to look back at Egypt.

(To walk in freedom without looking back, you have to trust the One who set you free.)

The danger of looking back is the same for us as it was for Lot’s wife. We run the risk of being frozen in place, unable to move forward. We stay fixed on the past, on what is behind us and we miss out on the life that is in front of us.

looking backLately I have found myself looking back. Not with longing or regret, but with the mindset that what is back there can meet my needs. God has been good to not turn me into salt. Instead, He has called me forward with the promise that all I need is ahead of me, not behind me.

What is in front of me is, for the most part, unknown. Who is in front of me is not. God is in front of me, calling me to keep moving into life. To dream new dreams in new places, to take new territory. To learn of Him in new ways. To discover His provision goes before me into every new place He calls me to walk.

Perhaps it’s time for you, as well, to face forward. To turn your eyes to what is in front of you, trust God, and discover that He has life ahead of you.

little girl

Exodus 14:11-12; Exodus 16:3; Exodus 17:3; Isaiah 43:18; Luke 9:62; 

a few thoughts on a good friday

CrucifixionI got up this morning after not enough sleep, made my coffee and sat down in front of the crucifixion. The story is familiar and strange, breathtaking and gut wrenching. Bloody and beautiful.

It is His story and it is mine, but we see it through different eyes.

“But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail.”

He sees prayer. I see betrayal.

“Jesus replied, ‘Do what you came for, friend.'”

He sees a friend. I see an enemy. A traitor.  

“Then Jesus said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. Go and tell My brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see Me.’”

He sees brothers. I see deserters and cowards.

His story and mine, all tangled together. I am the one He came to save and He is the One who came to save me. I had sin, He had blood and now there is blood where there used to be sin. Our stories dance together and look nothing alike.

His eyes and mine see it all so differently.

1024eyes

I see sinner, He sees daughter.

eyes

I see shame He sees the cross.

Seen through different eyes, our stories come together and it’s Friday. We meet at Golgotha, each bringing what is needed to the cross.

My nails, His hands. My sin, His blood. My anger, His love. My weakness, His strength. His provision, my need. His death, my life.

His story and mine all tangled together

in a beautiful bloody kind of way.

I will never be the same. He will never change.

It’s a Good Friday.

Luke 22:31; Matthew 26:50; Matthew 26:56; Matthew 28:10

it’s time to jump

high diveI only jumped one time. That was enough. When I take my mind back to that moment, I can still feel the fear. I saw others jump with ease, and go right back for more. I knew I could swim. I knew that the water was safe. I believed the mechanics of jumping, that if I went straight in, the water would catch me, I would touch the bottom and push my way back to the surface. And the one time I jumped, it happened just like that. I think I was crying when I got out of the water, and I never, ever climbed that high dive again. I remained terrified of jumping, but I never understood why.

(because believing and trusting are not the same)

I was watching a group of kids recently, barely toddlers. They were in the playroom at church, climbing up through the giant tubes and tunnels, sliding down and going right back for more. Only a few held back, content to go up the few steps so they could come down the small slide. But most of them were absolutely fearless. It never occurred to them that something bad could happen to them. We had led them in there and turned them loose to play, so they played with abandon.

(adults believe. children trust)

And then life happens. Hearts get broken. Innocence gets taken. We fall, we get hurt, we find ourselves alone. We learn the hard truth that not everyone is good, and sometimes, everything doesn’t turn out okay. Sometimes things just get worse. And fear comes in and bullies our trust into submission.

(“Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”)

Jesus said we must change and become as little children. Change is a process. It takes time to grow from an adult into a child. To learn the truth that God is good. But time belongs to God and God cannot be bullied by fear. Instead, He sends love into the fight. And like ocean waves it just keeps coming, beating back the fear that keeps us from jumping. Because trust and fear do not dwell together, no sir, one of them must go, and God cannot be bullied.

Trust renders us dependent upon the one we are trusting. Isn’t that it, really? It’s the falling backward, trusting the one standing behind you to catch you that makes us vulnerable, wholly dependent on someone else’s ability to be trusted. No control. And isn’t the need for control the darkest place in our heart, after all? Isn’t that the biggest fear of them all?

(“but there is a God in heaven…”)

And the hardest thing about growing from an adult to a child is realizing that we never did have control. Not really. Some would call it an illusion. I think deception is a more fitting name.

Do I dare say my next thought? The one that keeps pulsing against my heart? Believing makes you safe. Trusting makes you dangerous.

(because believers rarely jump)

I am a believer, becoming a child who trusts. Because God has refused to be wave1bullied by my fear and love has been beating against my heart like ocean waves.

And He has me at the high dive again. I believe He is with me. I believe He is good. I believe He has good plans for me. But none of that will get me to jump.

I have to trust Him to catch me.

Luke 18:16; Matthew 18:3; Daniel 2:28

Note:  Many times Jesus asked, “do you believe?”, or He said that someone’s faith had healed them, etc. Both of those words contain, within their biblical definition, the word ‘trust’, and the idea of going beyond having a knowledge of something to actually trusting what you believe. In other words, when Jesus said “do you believe Me?”, He was asking “do you trust Me?”.

Webster’s dictionary does not use the word ‘trust’ in its definition of the word ‘believe’, and I am convinced that neither do many of us.

doulos

Woke up with a massive migraine. Took painkillers left over from the car wreck. Woke up five hours later feeling hungover, but the tiny people were no longer using giant sledgehammers on my brain. Now they’re just rubber mallets. Much better. Opened my bible, thinking Psalms, or maybe Song of Songs. Something soothing.

Instead I went to James. I’m as surprised as anyone. Who reads James when they don’t feel good? I don’t know, because I didn’t actually read James. I read the first sentence and then tripped.

doulos“James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ”…

I think his opening words meant much more to James and the first readers of his letter, than to us. In fact, I bet most of us just skim over those words,  because who pays attention to introductions? The writer is simply identifying himself.

James was the brother of Jesus, and at first did not believe his brother was the Messiah and openly opposed Him. But James eventually became a believer, and very well known in the Church. He was the leader of the church in Jerusalem, and a “pillar” of the Church, according to Paul. James could have identified himself using any number of words. Personally, I think most of us would have pulled out the “brother of Jesus” card for sure.

Who are you, James? “a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ”.

What comes to mind when you hear the word ‘servant’? I think of foot washing. I think of someone who does the menial tasks, the one who sets up the tables for a church event. I think of terms we use, such as “servant-leadership”, and “he has a servant’s heart”, and how those terms generally refer to “doing”. I have even said “I am a servant of Christ” myself, usually under my breath while I am doing something no one else would volunteer for. And in my best martyr’s voice.

In the Greek language, there are various words used for our one word “servant”, and they have different meanings and shades of meaning. To fit my definition above (minus the martyr’s voice), the word James would probably have had to use is ‘diakonos’:

~ one who executes the commands of another, especially of a master ~ the servant of a king ~ a deacon, one who, by virtue of the office assigned to him by the church, cares for the poor and has charge of and distributes the money collected for their use ~ a waiter, one who serves food and drink.

But the word he actually used to identify himself is “doulos”, or “bondservant”:

~ slave ~ one who gives himself wholly to another’s will ~ one who is devoted to another to the disregard of one’s own interests ~ those who’s service is used by Christ in extending and advancing His cause among men  ~ all who obey God’s commands; His true worshippers

Big difference. James identified himself not as someone who did things for God, but as someone who had willingly enslaved and bound himself to God. He was completely and utterly devoted to God and to Jesus, laying down his own will and interests. A bondservant is one who is completely given over to the one he serves. It is a position that expresses the absolute highest devotion.

It is no small thing to be a doulos of Christ. It is not something we can use to guilt convince people to volunteer to do more in the church.

dig deepThis kind of study and digging fascinates me, and I could literally spend hours and hours doing it. But my desire to go deeper, and to know the heart of God more, won’t be satisfied by a word study, unless it results in revelation from the Holy Spirit. It was when I was reading my study notes about the life of James that I got the revelation that took me deeper.

James was martyred in 62 A.D.  Not because he was a diakonos, but because he was a doulos. 

James, Paul, Peter, and Jude all identified themselves as bondservants (doulos) of Christ. In their letters to the churches, they give a very vivid picture of what the life, and the faith, of a bondservant looks like. They were obedient, crucified lives. These men weren’t spiritual super heros. They were filled with the Spirit of God, but they were mortal men who had made a choice, a decision to live life, all of life, for God and for the cause of Christ.

Everyone of them were killed for that decision.

How do I want to be identified? diakonos, or doulos? One can make me feel like a martyr, the other, given the right place and time, could actually make me one.

I probably should have gone to the Song of Songs. James wasn’t good for my headache.

hope in the end

I don’t know why it happened. I don’t know how evil got into a young man’s heart and mind to convince him to go to an elementary school and open fire on children.

Woman-mourning-cryI don’t know how parents cope with a loss that must feel like a building fell on them, burying them in grief.

I don’t know how a community rises from the ashes of tragedy to trust humanity again.

All around me were the voices of others who were praying and grieving, reminded again that evil has no heart for the most innocent among us. I read the flurry of opinions as to how this happened, why it happened and what we need to do to make sure it doesn’t happen again. None of it changed the “I don’t know” in my heart.

Last night, I needed hope for my bruised heart. Hope in the midst of fear and the knowledge that darkness is all around, hanging heavy over us, and that the heart of darkness is evil indeed. So I turned myself to God, who gave me a one word answer to all my questions, and to my cry for hope.

Jesus.

Jesus, the light that God sent into darkness to show us the way out.

Jesus, bleeding and dying, heavy with the sins of man.

Jesus, leaving the tomb victorious over the death that could in no way hold Him.

Jesus, dwelling in me with grace and power to keep my own heart from succumbing to the evil that longs to have it.

Apart from Him, there is no hope. Without Jesus, despair would be all we have. Without Jesus, evil would be victorious and would have us all.

Pages turn, and hope rushes up to meet me.

light in the dark“In Him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

Light came and showed the way out of darkness. Light, dwelling in me, going wherever I am willing to go. To show the way out.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

The power of God’s comfort will be greater than the power of our mourning. Satan cannot cause us to mourn so deeply that God cannot meet us with far greater comfort.

And then I flip the pages all the way back. Because sometimes the darkness lays so heavy, that we need to hear the end again.

“When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison  and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth—Gog and Magog—and to gather them for battle. In number they are like the sand on the seashore. They marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of God’s people, the city he loves. But fire came down from heaven and devoured them. And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur,where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.”

“He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

“He who testifies to these things says, ‘Yes, I am coming soon.’ Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen.”

Yes, sometimes, when our hearts are bruised and grief-stricken by the breath of evil, when “I don’t know” is all we can say with any honesty, we just need to hear the ending again.

Because there is hope in the end, there is hope today.

the-end-jesus-wins-2

John 1:4; Matthew 5:4; Revelation 20:7-10; Revelation 21:5; Revelation 22:20-21

missing joy full

All it takes is a few words. Just a few, skimmed over and paid little attention. And then one day, those few words come off the page dressed in neon lights, making my head tilt sideways.

Open-Bible-500x215“The seventy-two returned with joy and said, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.”  He replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you.  However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.’

 At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.” – Luke 10:17-21

Today I saw words I had been missing,

“The seventy-two returned with joy”

and something in me ached. It ached because I realized that I can’t remember the last time I had returned with joy from discovering His power in ministry. And I think it ached because I hadn’t realized that I missed it, this joy.

“Jesus, full of joy…”

He wasn’t disappointed in them because they missed the point. Instead, He traded stories with them. They saw demons submit to them, He saw Satan fall from heaven.

They didn’t return all excited only to get a rebuke. He didn’t burst their bubble of excitement, but He did remind them that there was something far better than demons in submission, something really worth celebrating. Don’t settle for rejoicing over demons. Not when your name is in the book of life.

He wasn’t against them, shaking His head because they had it all wrong. He was

Full. Of. Joy.

Somehow, I missed that.

It doesn’t really matter to me right now why He was joy full. Just the picture of Jesus, smiling, laughing (because people full of joy do those things) with His disciples…that picture makes my heart happy. Joy full, even. And I’ve missed that.

Here is what I didn’t miss. Not today…

“…through the Holy Spirit…”

I won’t get joy full by trying harder. It can’t be worked up, or manufactured.

Joy won’t come from things, from circumstances, or from other people.

In my search to know more of the Holy Spirit, I am taking note…

He brings

Joy