Tag Archives: life

It’s Life or Death

Quiet time with Jesus this morning was fast and furious. Some days it’s slow, quiet, and contemplative. Not today. A few days ago I felt led to return to the book of Genesis. It’s a well read, well underlined, highlighted, circled book in my bible, but I was sure that God would say something fresh from it. I was not wrong. Let’s get to it.

 The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (Genesis 2:9)

A planting from God in the center of man’s world, from the very beginning. Adam, and all who would come after him would continually be confronted with a choice—life or death, and the loving command of God to choose life.

“This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to His voice, and hold fast to Him.” (Deuteronomy 30:19-20)

“The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life.” (John 6:63)

From one end of the Bible to the other runs a continual theme. Choose God’s way and live, or choose our own way and find death.

“There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death” (Proverbs 14:12)

After four hundred years of silence between the prophet Malachi and the Gospels, God spoke the same refrain. Choose life or choose death.

“For God so loved the world that he gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

“Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6)

But the choice before us isn’t only about heaven or hell. Every day we face small decisions that either breathe life into something or slowly choke it out.

Choosing spiritual apathy will bring death to zeal and passion. But if we will choose the pursuit of God, and zeal for His house, it will bring life to our souls and life to the Church.

Choosing offense and bitterness suffocates forgiveness and restoration—and eventually the relationship itself. But choosing God’s way of grace, mercy, and forgiveness brings life back into our own hearts and breathes new life into relationships that were being threatened with death.

Every time we choose our own way over God’s way, death comes to something. In the center of our existence the choice has been planted, and we must decide the way we will choose to walk. Life, or death.

Jesus or the world. Our own flesh and emotions or obedience to God. Offense that leads to a bitter heart, or forgiveness that heals and restores. The pull of apathy or the call to a “one thing” heart posture, a continual pursuit of the heart and ways of God, and a zeal for Him and His house, the Church.

Choose you this day…

Questions to ask and things to ponder:

  • In the abundance of choices that I make every day, how many of them bring death instead of life?
  • In the big picture of how I live my life, am I choosing life?
  • How can I begin to speak and/or pray life over the people I love?

Our Tree of Life: Suffering and Redemption

It was late. I needed to sleep but couldn’t get my brain to agree with my body. It’s become that thing that I do. Go to bed and not sleep. Lately, my brain’s aversion to sleep has been leading me to the secret place and middle of the night sessions with the Holy Spirit. This night was that kind of night.

Suddenly, a picture showed up in my mind. A tree. Large, lush, very green, and full of fruit. It was the tree of Life in the Garden of Eden.

And then I saw the cross and Jesus hanging on it. And suddenly, scriptures came across the screen of my mind.

“Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” – John 6:53

“Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, because it is written: Everyone who is hung on a tree is cursed.” – Galatians 3:13

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” – John 14:6

 “…that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.” – Philippians 3:10-11

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” – Galatians 2:20

And these thoughts pole vaulted into my brain –

The cross is now our tree of life, and Jesus is the fruit of that tree.

We no longer have access to that original tree of life. The one that came without suffering. The one that required no death.

Ours is a different tree.

We must be reminded of this tree and what it means, beyond “Jesus died for my sins”. We must take of the fruit of this tree in order to know life. We must partake of what Jesus suffered so that we too can obtain His resurrection.

For most of us, our suffering looks different than His. None of the people in my immediate circle, or in any of the circles near me, are being killed for the gospel. But there is certainly that suffering taking place in other parts of the world, and for those ones I pray Godspeed and mercy.

But here, in my world, there are other sufferings, as the death to our flesh is called for on a daily basis. A laying down of our own will in order to fulfill the will of the Father. A death to dreams and wants and our 5-year plan for our lives. The tearing down of idols that seems unending as the light continues to expose what has been hidden in us. A giving of ourselves when we would rather keep, remaining when we would rather leave, being emptied of our own selves so that we can be continually filled with Spirit of God.

Letting mercy triumph over judgment in our own hearts toward those around us. Giving grace that hasn’t been earned. Showing compassion, not just for the least of these, but for those who are against us. Speaking mercy instead of condemnation. Dropping stones that feel like justice in our hands.

Please tell me you’re getting this, because I can go on all day.

The cross is not just the place Jesus died a long, long time ago. It is where we die every single day. It is our tree of life.

And I have said all of that, to say this:

Oh, what a God! He looked through time and knew that we would go astray. Knew we would leave Him and claim our lives as our own. So He made a way before we even knew we needed one.

When He set flaming swords in front of the tree of life in the Garden of Eden, He knew there would be another tree, in the fullness of time, and it would bring eternal life to all who would partake of its fruit.

To taste the suffering of the cross is to taste the redemption of the tree of life.

I find it all a little mind-blowing.

Declaration & Praise: Day 2

“Who then is able to stand against Me? Who has a claim against Me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to Me.” – Job 41:11
“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.” – Revelation 4:11

There is none greater than You! You alone own the heavens and everything under it. Your throne cannot be challenged, Your authority cannot be undone, for You alone are God. You will always have the victory in any battle, You will always have the final Word.

All of life is from You and for You. I have breath because You breathed life into me, and it is by Your will alone that I take my next breath. Life is found in no one else but You.

And no one other than You is worthy of my praise. All glory. All honor. All power. It is all owed to You alone, for You alone created heaven and earth and all that is within them.

My life is in You and belongs to You. Because of You I have been forgiven and redeemed. Because of You I have been made new, and am now free of all condemnation, free of the chains of sin and death that once had me bound. Because of You, I have eternal life.

Today, I will give thanks, You owed me nothing, but You have given me everything. How great Thou art!

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;