Tag Archives: salvation

genesis 21: Cast It Out

From promise given to promise fulfilled: 25 years.

Had they stopped waiting? Were they satisfied with their version of the promise they named Ishmael?

Didn’t they know that a God-promise is not fueled by human power?

So the son of promise is here, being birthed in the place where the son of flesh (Ishmael) is already living. These two sons will be at odds until the end of time. For us, they represent Law and Grace. Freedom and slavery. Paul speaks to all of that in Galatians, chapter 4. 

But I am staring at what Sarah said to Abraham in vs. 10 of Genesis 21»»

And it sounds like this to my ears:

Cast our what was of the flesh, for nothing of the flesh will share in the inheritance of the promise.

Every ounce of what I’m doing in an attempt to be right with God on my own, everything I’m doing to try to bring about the promise or plans of God on my own. All of it. Cast. it. Out. 

The promise of God is that I am saved by grace, through faith. So grace and law are always fighting for dominance in my belief system. One makes me free, the other makes me a captive.

My flesh will always be at odds with grace. It will always try to bend toward the law and self. Grace will always bend toward God. Flesh puts my eyes on me and what I can do. Grace always pulls my gaze to God and what He can do. 

While I know these things, the challenge is always in the follow through. To choose to believe God more than I believe in my own ability to make something happen, and then to wait on God.

To cast out my Ishmael, because Isaac is here.

genesis 10: origins

“These are the generations of the sons of Noah…”

Just nine words. Words that no doubt most of us just skim past. But you and I are in those words. Generations. Sons of Noah.

Japheth: Often referred to as the Father of Europeans. His descendants were French, German, Celtic, Russian, and Spanish, among others. Some of his sons’ descendants inhabited Iran and Iraq, India and Armenia.

Ham: His descendants inhabited Africa and the Far East. They founded both Babylon and Ethiopia. They lived in Libya, Egypt, and Israel. It is also widely believed that the Asian peoples descended from sons of Ham.

Shem was an ancestor of Persians, Assyrians and the Syrians, and various Arabic peoples.

You and I fall somewhere in there, as descendants of the sons of Noah, a descendant of Adam and Eve.

It’s good to know and remember where you came from.

I was the first person in my immediate family (parents, siblings) to become a Christian. I met a guy in a bar and eventually married him. He came from a Christian family and told me about Jesus. Not a lot, but the basics. Years later I would surrender my life to that Jesus and never look back. But I learned that there were members of my dad’s family (grandmother, grandfather (eventually) uncles, aunts) who were Christians. I can’t help but wonder where it began. I would love to discover who was my point of origin for the gospel in my family.

After I got saved, most of my family members became Christians, one at a time. I’m still believing for those who have not yet surrendered to the Lordship of Christ.

The covenants God made with both Abraham and Noah included their descendants. God’s purposes and His heart are for families, for lineage and legacy. He doesn’t bless one man, He blesses a man and his descendants. He doesn’t just save one man, He saves a man and his entire household.

And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”

That doesn’t mean that when one person is saved, his whole household is automatically saved. It means that one person getting saved then opens the door for the gospel to his whole family.

In a very roundabout way, I am coming to my point, which is this:

God is about family. Descendants. Legacy. Households. Keep going. Keep praying. Keep believing. Keep walking with Jesus. You are opening doors. You are walking in the blessings of God that are being passed down from one generation to the next.

You could very well be someone’s point of origin for the gospel.

Matthew—We Can Stop Inviting Jesus

“‘Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.’ Jesus replied, ‘Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.'” 

“‘Lord,” another of His disciples said, “first let me go bury my father.” But Jesus told him, “Follow Me, and let the dead bury their own dead.” – Matthew 8:19-22

narrow

Jesus was clear that following Him would not be a journey of 5-star hotels, but a narrow gate to a narrow road and most of what we clutch in our hands and our hearts will not fit.

He was equally clear that there is an urgency in the Gospel and no other perceived obligation can come first. To the man’s request that Jesus wait until he tied up his loose ends, Jesus’ answer was no.

But what really caught my eye was the missing invitation.

Neither of the men invited Jesus to be their Lord and Savior. Instead, they each said they would be His follower.

And for some reason, that became meat on a bone for me. A bone that I need to pick with us, the ambassadors for Christ, the disciple-makers, the carriers of the Gospel. So many of us present people with the same message, in varying forms:

“Invite Jesus into your heart/life to be your Lord and Savior, and you will be saved.”

We need to stop presenting the Gospel as though it is our invitation to God.

“Therefore let all the house of Israel know with certainty that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah!” Acts 2:36

Our invitation does not make Him what God has already made Him.

I think the real reason that our invitation to Jesus has become a point of contention for me, is that it feels too much like we are standing on a level playing field with Jesus. Like we have the power over whether or not He is Lord.

“…so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow—of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth—and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Philippians 2:10-11)

It’s not that the Christians have a Lord, and everyone else doesn’t. Jesus is Lord of all. The question will never be, is He Lord and Savior?, but did we obey the Gospel and receive life? Faith is an act of obedience, not an invitation. (Romans 1:5, 16:26; Romans 10:15-17)

I know what you’re thinking. The invitation gives them a starting point, a way of expressing verbally what is happening in their heart. It’s semantics, really.

Except it isn’t. I cannot find even a theological principle that implies our ability to extend an invitation to the Creator of heaven and earth, for anything. Even our opening the door that He is knocking on is not our invitation to Him, it is our yes to Him. He’s already at the door. No invitation needed. (Revelation 3:20)

Gospel means good news. The good part is not that we can invite Jesus in. It is that He can make us stop being dead.

 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world… But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love that He had for us, made us alive with the Messiah even though we were dead in trespasses.

For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift. (Ephesians 2:1,4, 8 – emphasis mine)

Lazarus comes to mind as a physical picture of a spiritual event. He was very dead. Jesus neither gave an invitation nor waited for one. He gave a command — “Lazarus, come forth”. Disobedience would have kept him in the grave. Obedience brought him out.

Invitations are nice, polite. Unintrusive. Friendly. I think maybe that’s what we want the Gospel to be.

But it isn’t. The keys to death and hell were not politely handed over, they were taken with earth-shaking force. There was nothing friendly about the atonement for our sin.

The Gospel is bloody and real and hell shattering and it is not about making bad people good, or hurt people better, but about making dead people live.

passionofchristqi4

This was not to make us better but to put an end to our death. 

It leaves me a little wrecked with wonder as I look back through this lens and see what really happened in April of 1989 when I thought I was inviting Jesus to come into my life to be my Lord and Savior.

In reality, He stood at my tomb and commanded me to come forth. And in His love, goodness, and mercy, He took my invitation as obedience and removed my grave clothes.

Oh. How I love Him.

water and wine

 

The Gospel of John. Second Chapter.

“On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee…When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”

water-to-wineSo He took water and made it wine and the miracle is only noticed by a few. And this story is so familiar  I want to just move on, keep reading. But I am drawn back to the story of water and wine and I discover there are depths here that I have never seen.

“In the ancient Near East, with its scarcity of water, wine was a necessity rather than a luxury, so it came to symbolize sustenance and life. Due to its close relationship to the ongoing life of the community, in association with grain and oil, wine is also representative of the covenant blessings God promised to Israel for obedience, and which He would withhold for disobedience. Finally, wine also represents joy, celebration, and festivity, expressing the abundant blessings of God.” – Martin G. Collins, Forerunner Commentary (emphasis mine)

His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

All at once I am flush with conviction because those words go into my soul, you know? Into my doubtful, my fearful places, into my rebellious places. Into the place where I’ve been putting off what I know He wants me to do. So the words of a mother spoken to her son become the words of a Father spoken to His daughter. 

Do whatever He tells you

fill the jar to the brim

offer your loaves and fishes

take up your mat and walk

cast your net to the other side

step out of the boat

be still          go            fast and pray             give

forgive           love          believe

Trust Me.

Do whatever He tells you. 

I know. It sounds simple. Seems silly that it even needs to be said. But reality? We sit in our place of ‘no more wine’ and will not get up and do whatever He tells us to do. We have need and we weep and we worry and we wonder where He is but we will not obey. We think about it, we say we’ll do it, we tell others it’s what they should do, and honestly? We want to do it, I know we do. We just don’t actually do whatever He tells us to do.

And that is why we have water but no wine

 

“Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”

rear-view-mirroAnd right there my heart loves Him more, again. Right in the place of the best is not behind you but in front of you, always. So when you’ve been looking in the rear view, thinking the good stuff is behind you, you’ll plant your foot right here on this word and weep.

Just when you thought the good wine was gone He reminds you that He is good and He gives nothing cheap, so the best is always yet to come. 

 

And all of that is so good. Conviction to deeper obedience…good. Joy in the best yet to come…so good. But something in the words of this story still nags at me.

Now six stone water jars had been set there for Jewish purification…

And no matter how much or how often that water flowed it would never clean more than the outside. It would wash hands but never hearts. That water is everything I ever did to try to wash away what made me unclean, to make me better, to make me good enough. And that thought leads to this…

“Then He took a cup, and after giving thanks, He gave it to them and said, “Drink from it, all of you. For this is My blood that establishes the covenant; it is shed for many for the forgiveness of sins.”*

And sometimes I’m left on my face at His feet because God turned the story of a wedding into my story and I just don’t know how He does it. But He did and somewhere from the deep of my heart come the only words I can say to worship Him.

You turned my water into wine.

 

*Matthew 26:28

remembering africa – sudan – making room

I am prone to forgetting so I want to memorialize my very first mission trip. I want to put my memories in writing for my grandchildren and their children, but also for me. Because remembering is sweet.

(Ignore the dates on the photos. They were all taken in March, 2007.)

Sudan – Part 1

100_5331After we left Uganda, we headed for Sudan, to a town called Bor. On our way, we stopped to stay in tent city. It was a ‘hotel’ made up of what looked like army tents with two cots in each tent. Quite nice, really. It was in tent city that I first came to appreciate the headlamp. The headlamp was a small flashlight that sat on your forehead, held in place by an elastic band around your head. When my team leader first stressed the importance of bringing one, I really didn’t understand why. Besides, I looked every bit as silly as I felt wearing it. But the first time I had to go to the bathroom in the dark, I discovered what really mattered. I needed that flashlight on my head because my hands would be busy holding onto the pole that would keep me from falling into the hole in the ground that was the toilet. Awesome.

Uganda tent city
Salvation. I think I was overwhelmed by the beauty of this moment.

It was in tent city that I would meet a most beautiful girl from Kenya (I can’t for the life of me remember her name). She worked at tent city and was our hostess, more or less. She liked us and hung around our team a lot. She told me she missed Kenya. She missed her home and her family. I don’t know what brought her to Sudan, but I got the impression she couldn’t afford to leave. The day before we left, she was sitting with us in the meal tent and someone led her, weeping, to Jesus. Later, she came to a couple of us, with her small bible, and asked if we would show her what to do. We showed her where she should begin reading and we prayed for her. My heart has always remembered her, even if my mind cannot recall her name.

Once lost, now found, in a tent in Sudan.
Once lost, now found, in a tent in Sudan.

Our first night in tent city, our team sat at an outdoor table by a group of trees, planning and yawning. There was a group of people not far from us, sitting around talking. One of them was a young man who, upon realizing we were American, came over to us to say hello. His story was stunning. He was one of the Lost Boys of Sudan and was among those who had been allowed to resettle in the United States. Almost all of his family members had been killed in the war, and his village had been destroyed. He was one of the boys who escaped on foot into the bush, finally ending up in Kenya. After relocating to the U.S., he finished his schooling and got a good job. But Sudan was his home, and he had returned because he wanted to rebuild his village and look for members of his family. That day was his first day back in Sudan since fleeing for his life.

It is these things, these stories of people longing for their home, that pushed against the walls of my heart, trying to make room for something bigger than my own life. There is something so powerful about ‘home’, that a lost boy from poverty would grow into a man surrounded by wealth, and return to poverty, because it’s home, and it matters to him. And a girl from Kenya so lonely you could see it on her face, and for whatever reason, she was there, in Sudan in a tent city, when a group of missionaries needed a place to stay. To be present at that moment that had been arranged by God, watching a young woman cry as Jesus entered her heart, was so surreal to me. I don’t think it was that I suddenly felt very small so much as it was that the moment seemed suddenly so very big. As though nothing else in all the earth mattered at that moment, except that God had arranged a meeting.

As all of this comes to me at this moment, I know what I want…what I’ve been wanting since I returned. I want something to push against my heart. Something bigger than me and my life to push its way in. I want moments that are so much bigger than me, moments where nothing else matters except what God is doing.

Sudan's poverty was a shock to senses that had never seen anything like it.
Sudan’s poverty was a shock to senses that had never seen anything like it.

Meat for sale.
Meat for sale

Soldiers in the streets...a reminder.
Soldiers in the streets…a reminder.

for you i pray

I wanted to tie 2012 up in a nice bow, bid it a fond goodbye, wax poetic about lessons learned and new beginnings and such. But my heart keeps turning away from all of that, bidding my mind to stop chattering long enough to just listen. And the weight of what I hear bends my heart, bowing it low. Voices from this past year. Conversations I’ve heard, words I’ve read. And I feel the Holy Spirit in this little room, this prayer room. I feel His weight on my heart as He reminds me to step out of my small story. And so I enter yours, with prayer…

hanging_by_a_threadFor those who spent this year hanging on by a thread. Maybe it’s a thread of hope. Maybe a thread attached to the hem of His garment, but a thread nonetheless. For you, I pray you will stop trying to trust Him. Trust is not something you try, it’s something you choose. He wants so much more for you than a thread of hope, a thread of trust. He wants handfuls for you. I pray that you will not be content with a thread in hand, but that you will let go of His garment and grab onto Him, and find your hands overflowing, unable to contain what you hold. For you, the thread holder, I pray ~

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

A year of both hands full of Christ, holding on to all of Him with trust and confidence, and hope that overflows. Both hands, beloved, grab onto Him with both hands, and let go of the thread.

PENTAX ImageFor those who suffered great loss and spent time in the ash heap of mourning. For you, the one now familiar with great sorrow and what surely feels like unquenchable pain. I pray you will know His comfort, like a balm, for that pain. I pray God opens His hand and pours forth joy, like oil over your mourning heart. I pray that at just the right time, His time, He will invite you to dance. Yes, beloved, you have known the time to mourn, but there is still a time to dance. I pray that this year you will receive grace to comfort others with the comfort you have received. I pray for all of your pain, all of your grief, every tear to be used, nothing wasted. And I pray that His promise will strengthen you on those days when grief attempts to hijack your heart ~

“He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

I pray that you will emerge from the ashes, steadfast and sure that all of this, the pain, the tears, the death, are all temporary conditions. That you will know and give others the hope that a reunion will happen, a holy hand will wipe away the last of the tears, and never again will you know this pain.

For those who spent the year afraid. Afraid something will never end, or perhaps that nothing will begin. Afraid of too much or not enough. Afraid that you didn’t hear Him right, or that you did. Afraid of what you feel, or of the fact that you feel nothing and maybe you never will. What if nothing changes? What if everything changes? For the one tormented by fear, I first pray peace for your wildly beating heart. I pray that this year He will lead you on a journey of letting go of fear. A journey of cliff jumping into faith, arms wide, heart fully expecting to be caught by His hands. I pray that you will know that He is with you, always, and that He will not drop you. I pray that your heart will come to know perfect love in the deep places where fear often hides. For you, the one who lived this year full of fear, I pray you will hear the voice of your Savior ~

“Don’t be afraid; just believe.”

I pray that this will be a year of increasing faith for you, the year where belief in the power and love of your God leaves no room for fear.

For the one who lived with disappointment. Unmet expectations that took the wind out of your sails throughout the year. Hopes and plans and dreams that fell apart. Your heart grows weary. I pray for you, dear one. I pray that this will be the year of renewed hope in God, and lower expectations in people. I pray that all of your hope, every last drop of it, will be in God and God alone. I pray for strength to hold on, and strength to let go. To let go of people and hold firmly to God, where your hope will find no disappointment. I pray that this year will find your prayers being answered, for God knows what hope deferred does to our hearts.

“But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear Him, on those whose hope is in His unfailing love…”

Hoist your sails again, friend, and lift your voice in prayer with confidence that your God hears, your God sees, and your God will answer. His love will not fail.

For the one who tried. You tried being good enough. Tried praying, tried church. Tried to read the bible full of words you don’t understand. Tried to be nicer. Tried saying the right things the right way, tried fitting in. You followed the list of do’s and don’ts. You tried, but your life is still a mess. Your heart is still empty and so are your pockets. Your addiction still rages, and your marriage is still broken. And you just don’t get it. For you I pray that this was the last year.

The last year that you remain pinned to the ground by the enemy. The last year that you live unaware of Love. Unaware that there is a Father in heaven who created you, longs for you, and gave up His Son so that you could know Him.

I pray someone will be brave enough to walk up to you and tell you the truth; that what you need is grace and trying isn’t currency to buy it with because grace is free, and only grace can put us back together and Jesus has the grace to give if you will just come. Come, while you are yet a sinner. While you are yet broken and messy, with all that rages in you and against you…come. I pray they tell you that trying won’t save you, it takes dying and Jesus did that dying for you.

cross1

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

For you, my messy, broken friend, I pray that this was your last year of trying. I pray this is the year you cry out to Jesus in faith that He is who He said He is…the only One who can save you. I pray this is the year you find freedom in Christ, and you find out just how loved you really are by Him. I pray this is the year someone tells you.

To all my friends, family, and those I encounter through the written word…I pray for you, and for me…

Our Father in heaven, Your name be honored as holy.
Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.And do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

Happy New Year!

Romans 15:13; Ecclesiastes 3:4; Revelation 21:4; Ephesians 3:17-18; 1John 4:18; Mark 5:36; Psalm 33:18; Romans 5:8; John 14:6; Matthew 6:9-13

blood is in the air

Matthew 27

I stood at a distance with the other women, watching Jesus die. The smell of blood is in the air. Passover lambs being slaughtered and the Lamb of God dying. The law being kept in the shadow of grace flowing from the veins of God.

Blood is in the air and it means something to everyone.

Pilate, you washed your hands of the guilt of killing the innocent. How ironic that the very blood you washed your hands of was the only thing that could have washed away your guilt.

Pharisee, you killed the Lamb of God and then sacrificed your own lamb. You thought that the death of the One secured your prideful position before men, and the death of the other secured your humble position before God. How ironic, Pharisee, that the opposite was true.

Disciples, you left everything to follow, to be with Him. He was Messiah and His coming gave you hope and now He has died and your hope along with Him. Do you see the irony now, disciples? He left everything to be with you and your only hope is in His death.

Blood is in the air and isn’t it ironic? We wash our hands and kill a lamb and find hope in what we can see and touch. Our hands look clean but we ignore our hearts and we make our sacrifice while refusing His. We put our trust in what we see but we are blind.

I watch the rich man put His body in a tomb. Dead. Buried. Those who hated Him sighed relief, those who loved Him wept grief. The lambs were dead and the Lamb was buried. Sins had been taken and punishment given. Pilate sealed the tomb and posted guards and now the Pharisees could rest easy. While Mary weeps at the grave of the One she loves.

Her heart breaks in despair over the same death that makes mine beat with joy. Mary, don’t you know? What good is forgiveness if the grave keeps the Forgiver? Or the forgiven? Stay here, Mary. Watch with me. Because I know that today, blood is in the air.

But soon, that stone will roll out of His way.

And then we will sing…

He took my mourning and turned it into dancing;

He took my weeping and turned it into laughing;

He took my mourning and turned it into dancing;

He took my sadness and turned it into joy!