Crushed with Blessing

O give thanks to the Lord; call upon His name;
make known His deeds among the peoples!
Sing to Him, sing praises to Him;
tell of all His wondrous works!

Glory in His holy name;
let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice!
Seek the Lord and His strength;
seek His presence continually!
Remember the wondrous works that He has done,
His miracles, and the judgments He uttered,
O offspring of Abraham, His servant,
children of Jacob, His chosen ones!

Psalm 105:1-6

Do you ever feel just crushed with blessing?  I don't even know what to do with myself.  God has been so good to me.  We bought a Grand Cherokee yesterday for me.  T won't take it for himself.

I have been perfectly content in my Caravan, and I would have been content to drive it into the ground.  

I will remember all Your wondrous works and Your loving care for me, Lord.  You give me what I don't even need, and I praise You.

This, on top of giving R the help he's needed, rescuing L from the dangerous path she was on, allowing T's job to continue to be steady.  And our marriage is solid.  

We found out the other day that one of our oldest couple friends is getting divorced.  Breaks our hearts.  Makes me (and I'm assuming T too) remember the stormy seas and arid deserts our marriage has come through, and it breaks our hearts, because we know, we know, it is worth it to hang on during those tough times.  God has blessed us beyond what my feeble mind can even comprehend.

Bless the Lord, O my soul!

Bless the Lord, O my soul,

and all that is within me,

bless His holy name!

Bless the Lord, O my soul,

and forget not all His benefits, 

who forgives all your iniquity, 

who heals all your diseases,

who redeems your life from the pit,

who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy

who satisfies you with good

so that your youth is renewed life the eagle's.

Psalm 103:1-5

Oh, oh, oh.  Read my Happy Moments blog if you want to know the wonderful thing God did today.  How is it I get afraid and doubt Him?  My heart twists with fear and imagines the worst.  I pray, but I also question how, how even He could remedy the situation.  But He is so much greater than my feeble imagination can even begin to conjure.  He always has all the answers.  When will I learn to relax in His good care?

My consternation motivates me to pray, to entreat Him desperately though.  That is a good thing. 

God rescued L from danger today, danger she wouldn't believe and T and I didn't like to believe.  Experience told us otherwise though, so we were afraid.  Sadly, it appears we were right.  

My joy is tempered by sadness for the boy though.  I will pray for him, that God would get hold of his heart and create in him a desire for God.

Feast on the Bread of Life

 Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread form heaven.  For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.  They said to Him, "Sir, give us this bread always."  

Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to Me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in Me shall never thirst.  But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. 


I am the bread that came down from heaven. 

I am the bread of life.  Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.  This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.  I am the living bread that came down form heaven.  If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.  And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.


Truly, truly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.  Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.  For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink.  Whoever feeds on My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.  As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on Me, he also will live because of Me.  This is the bread that came down from heaven, not as the fathers ate and died.  Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.


John 6

And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil.  John 3:19

Abide in Me, and I in you.  John 15:4

Why do I resist abiding in Him?  Is it purely forgetfulness?  Sometimes, but sometimes isn't it something more?  As Jan says, do I love the darkness?  Sometimes. I have to admit what I would never display to the world around me: sometimes I do love the darkness.  The recesses of my heart sometimes nurse evil thoughts that I am not always willing to forsake.  And in those moments, I am not abiding in Him, and I am not feeding on the bread of life, on Him. 

Am I ready to forsake the evil in my heart?  I feel like a character in a Bible story:  Saul chooses to pursue David, David takes Bathsheba, David kills Uriah, the rich young ruler chooses his wealth over Jesus, the Israelites build the golden calf, Peter denies Jesus.  Whenever I read these my heart screams, "You big dummies!!!  Do the right thing!!!"

But here I am.  I am at a crossroads.  Which am I going to choose?  Do I want to feast on the bread of life, to abide in Him?

Nothing should be more real to me than Christ in me.  I get that.  I understand it.  But times come in the day when I am not willing to live it and I turn back to my fleshly nature.  I love the darkness more than the light, and I turn back.

O Lord, help me to not turn back.  Teach me to feast on the bread of life all day every day, to abide in You continually.  You are my life, my reality: You in me and I in You.  Nothing should be more real to me than that.

Self-deception

This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.   John 3:19

See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.  For in Him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in Him, who is the head of all rule and authority.  In Him also you were circumcised with a circumcision make without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you  were also raised with Him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised Him from the dead.   Colossians 2:8-12

Jan's teaching today in CBS was awesome to the point of being scary.  I feel like I have so much to say that I only barely grasp, this post may be a little incoherent.  I'm going to give it the old college try in the few minutes I have tonight though because it will help me gather my own thoughts.  Mostly I think I'll write out my scribbles from this morning's lecture. 

Jan started out by talking about how Paul was not content just to see that the Colossians were saved.  He wanted them to be solid and mature in their faith, and involves eradicating self-deception in their faith.

Here in America we tend to get saved, and then immediately become distracted with church-y arguments, theological debates about non-essentials, such as when the rapture will occur, or how to do communion or the best Bible translations.  This, rather than experiencing a crucifixion of our heart, a circumcision of our heart.  Without this crucifixion we fall into self-deception.  Who is winning the battle for our heart?  Is it the old man or the new man?  Is it the Gospel or religion?  Many self-deceptions are couched in God-words and Jesus-sentiment that take our minds off God-truth.

[A little aside here:  she began the whole lecture by saying that as a teenager she appeared to be Godly and righteous.  She had stellar grades, was involved in church and spoke often at Girl Scout gatherings.  She appeared to be what every mother wants her child to be.  But this outward appearance masked an inward rebellion against God.  Specifically, she was in love with a "bad boy" from the other side of town, and she had reformulated Christianity in her own mind such that this boy and her love for this boy were all good in God's sight.  She was steeped in self-deception.  So relevant to the discussion below, but it also gave my heart hope that my silly L, so in love with her "bad boy," could also turn around and be as solid in her walk with the Lord as Jan is!]

We have been made complete in Christ.  We have access to God's fullness now.  Jesus is the Head, and He has rule and authority over us.  The Gospel is Christ in us, with His rule and authority over our lives.  Are we experiencing that Gospel?  The Gospel of Christ's in us with His rule and authority?  Or are we going the way of sappy religiosity (my words, not Jan's) and self-deception?

The Gospel becomes a reality through death: death of the old nature.  And that death is like the removal of the foreskin in circumcision, but this is a spiritual circumcision, a circumcision of the heart.  Physical circumcision is an illustration of the removal of what is unnecessary.  Another illustration of the death of the old man is baptism: down into the death of the old life, and up into new life in Christ.

God obliterated the charges against the old man by obliterating the old man altogether.  We are a new creation.  Rebirth.  New life.  His life in us.

The death of the old man should take with it the deceptions of Satan, but we love our darkness!  We love those deceptions!  Our opinions!  In the darkness we do not have to die!  We can hold on to our opinions, our control.  In the end, it's all about holding onto that control, our control over ourselves rather than giving control and authority over to Him.

I hope I'm not being too cryptic here even to understand.  I have literally been typing out my notes from lecture.  Jan then talked about how all the rituals in the Old Testament were a shadow of what was to come.  For example -- just one example -- the Sabbath in which one day per week is set aside for rest.  This is a shadow of what we have now, which is continual rest in Jesus!  Her point was, why hold on to the shadow now that we have the substance!??  Jesus has come, and He is our substance.  We have Him, so we no longer need those things that remind us of the possibility of Him.  We have the fullness of Him!  We no longer need the shadow!

So what fights deception?  Knowing the substance!  She said there are so many ways to fall into deception, but they all come from the same source:  not knowing the substance, not knowing Jesus, not living in Him fully.

This world is not our home; it is not our reality.  Our reality is in Christ.  Here we are only vessels for the King to live in and through us for a time, but our ultimate reality is in Christ.

How easily we deceive ourselves.  It is always a control issue; always, "I want to live and not to die."  There is a fear of submitting wholly to Him.  But if we are not in Him and submitted to His authority, we are adrift in a sea of self-deception.  How willing are we to die to self?

I love that: If we are not in Him and submitted to His authority, we are adrift in a sea of self-deception.

And it goes along so beautifully with what she said last week that struck me: There should be nothing more real to me than the reality of Christ in me.

Circumcise Your Heart

And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statures of the Lord, which I am commanding you today for your good?  Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it.  Yet the Lord set His heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day.  Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.  For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe.  Deuteronomy 10:12-17

 I was struck by this passage as I did my CBS Bible study today.  We read it for the purpose of comparing it to Genesis 17:1-14, where God makes a covenant with Abram, changes his name to Abraham, and commands him to circumcise himself and all the people. The question wanted us to notice how in the Genesis passage the circumcision was a sign of the covenant, but in Deuteronomy (and in Jeremiah 4:3-4) God refers to a circumcision of the heart.  It is heart worship that He is looking for.

I loved our CBS teaching last week, and this passage reminded me of one thing our teaching leader, Jan, said: "There should be nothing more real to me than the reality of Christ in me."  That has stuck with me all week, and I think that is what God means when He says to circumcise the foreskin of our hearts, that nothing is more real to me, nothing more important, than Christ in me.

I may have mentioned before that Jan has a way of turning standard Christian thought and verbiage on its head, pointing out how it isn't really true at all.  I love that about her.   One thing she said last week was that God does not clean up our sin.  The Christian life is not about putting away our sin, our old sin nature.  That is Old Testament thinking.  He never intended to fix us up to make us presentable to Himself.  He always intended that the old man be done away with completely, that the old man be crucified and that we live a new life in Christ.

It was never our evil deeds that separated us from God as much as our evil nature that caused us to do those evil deeds.  Jesus' death was not as much about wiping the bad deeds away as much as calling us into His crucifixion with Him.  He doesn't fix us up; He calls us into His death and resurrection.  We live through Him because we live in Him and we walk in Him, moment by moment.

We are Christ's body; as Jesus was God's communication to us, now we are God's communication to mankind.  We are God's letter.  In line with this, Jan has talked before about how we are the church as we walk in His light, as we walk in Him, in the new life He gives us.  The church is certainly not a building, but it is also not simply a collection of people who come together on Sunday and put on VBS's and have potluck dinners.  We are the church as we walk in Christ, not as we gather to sing hymns and teach Sunday school.

I wonder if all this is what God means by circumcising the foreskin of our hearts.

Feed the Beast!

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.  And no creature is hidden from His sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.   Hebrews 4:12-13

L is so in love, and I am so afraid for her.  I am so afraid I can hardly even pray.  I find myself just praying, Oh Lord, help her, O please help her, help her help her.  I'm so afraid for her.  I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid.

She is the only one of our children who apparently is not embracing our ideas about dating being serious business, business that really should be avoided until one is ready to think about marriage.  She has received a little attention from a boy she likes, and she is pursuing him.  Tears have been flowing in torrents around here.  Accusations are flying.  It's been terrible.  And I don't know what to do for her.

What is most galling is that I am supposed to be a willing participant in this pursuit.  That's what she's asking me to do.  Suddenly she's obsessed with spending time at this girlfriend's house (whose brother she is in love with), and I'm supposed to do all the driving to get her there.  No matter what day, what hour, or what else needs to be done, I am supposed to cooperate fully in getting her to M's house.

And there is no talking rationally to her.  She immediately gets mad and says, "I'm not stupid, Mom!" as soon as I broach the topic of wisdom in this area.  "I have a good head on my shoulders!"  And yet she is proving herself stupid by pursuing him!  No rational thought interferes with the free reign of emotion in her world.  But she's not stupid!

I am creating rebellion in her by trying to squelch this though.  I think I have to let her go make mistakes.  It's not like she's on the verge of immorality; it's only a flirty little friendship at this point.  But how do you stop a train once it's rolling?  Better not to let the train roll at all, but I don't think I have that option right now.

Thankfully, I don't think she likes discord with me any more than I like it with her.  So after last night's storms I am hopeful she'll want to talk and find peace with each other today.  After a night of fitful praying on my part, I think Hebrews 4 contains the wisdom I need to convey to her.  If she is going to pursue, maybe I can strike a deal with her that somehow she is at least feeding herself the Word every day.  The Word has power, where I obviously do not.  And, as v. 13 points out, the nakedness of her soul is not hidden from God.  He knows her, knows her motives, and knows how to speak to her.

And also, I think God's wisdom in this is that His love for her is the antidote for her wanting a boy's attention.  If she could know and believe His love for her, that would go a long way toward loosening the grip any boy will have on her heart, especially before the right time.  I can talk wisdom until I'm blue in the face, but the beast needs to be fed if it's going to keep quiet.  God's love will feed that beast better than any boy.

Oh Father.  You are love.  And You do come to me.  I praise You that You are always near and You are full of wisdom.  You help me in my time of need.  Thank You.

Salt of the Earth

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored?  It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.

You are the light of the world.  A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.  Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.  Matthew 5:7-8, 13-16

Was I very merciful the other day with my daughter's old whopper-telling friend?  (See Happy Moments for the full low-down on my nastiness.)  Even with her entire family?  Hmmm. 

But God has called me to be the salt of the earth.  The light of the world.  A city on a hill to represent Him.  He has called me to see her with the compassion that He feels when He sees her.  It doesn't take a Ph.D. to see that she's hungry for attention and approbation.  Sadness in some form, whether it's loneliness or insecurity or something else, propels the lies.  My role is love and compassion and good attention.  God will heal her of the sin.