Knowing Him

When you meet someone, how long does it take before you begin to trust them? What must they do to gain your trust?

I have never been a very trusting person. Call it discernment or a messy childhood...either way, it takes a while for me to give my heart to trusting someone.

When I met Jesus, it was not much different. I saw my immediate need for a Savior and willingly sought His salvation. But over the years, it has taken experience for me to come to the place of fully trusting Him with EVERY area He reveals to me. I am certain there is more to come, but thus far He has brought me to a place of surrender in several (at times very difficult) areas of my heart. How does He get me there? By continually revealing Himself to me...who He is, the essence and character behind His ways.

Psalm 9:10 says, "Those who know Your name will trust in You, for You, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek You."

The Word God choose to use here to describe the kind of 'knowing' He desires of us is the word 'yada' in the Hebrew. It is a word used of an intimate knowledge, a sexual knowledge as a man knows his wife. God knows that as we inimately come to know His names (which reveal His character and purpose) we will trust Him. He even goes on in this verse to assure us of His promise to NEVER forsake those who seek Him.

What in your life is currently in need of some stability? Your job? Your family situation? Your marriage? Your health? The One True living God is extending Himself to us and offering for us to know His name so intimately that we can fully rely on it without hesitation. We must be willing to dig in and seek Him earnestly. Are you willing?

A Cup Full

Lately my boys and I have been studying through The Sermon on the Mount together. As we came to the Beatitudes, we began to discuss the meaning of the word 'blessed.' It is such a 'Christianeze' word that gets frequently tossed around that we can miss the true worth Jesus meant when He spoke this word nine times through the Beatitudes.

The Greek word is a word that means to be fully satisfied. Fully satified. Are you and I ever FULLY satisfied? What does that even look like? God gave me a picture to illustrate this meaning to my young sons. I set a glass on the table and filled it until the water bulged on the tippy top of the rim. They stared in awe at the shaky lip of water as it threatened to roll down the sides. I explained that is a fully satisfied cup. Likewise, when we seek to be filled with the Spirit and allow Jesus to so fill those empty places within us, WE become fully satisfied...filled to the brim with Jesus!

Ephesians 5:18b-20 says, " Be filled with the Spirit. Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ."

Just then, my active second born shook the table, he could no longer hold back the temptation! The water gave way over the lip of the glass and rolled onto the table. My wise firstborn said, "Look, Mom, it is spilling over with songs and hymns and spiritual songs!"

Wise words, my son. Are we not to be so filled that we, too, will spill over with songs and hymns and spiritual songs when life shakes us up?

Life WILL shake us...you do not have to live long on this planet to figure that out. How we react tells much about what we believe to be true about our God. So what about you? Are you and I so filled with the Spirit of the Living God that we are spilling over with music in our hearts, ALWAYS giving thanks to God the Father for EVERYTHING? I am seeking it and praying Jesus would make it so in my life today!

Follower or Slave?

Recently a 9 year old boy in my son's Bible camp posed this question...Shouldn't I be a follower of Jesus instead of a slave since being a slave is bad? Honest question. Don't we all at one time or another think the same thing? Being called a slave certainly has negative connotations. But, the truth of the matter is...we ALREADY are slaves, whether we like it or not, whether we believe it or not. (John 8:34)

Romans 6 teaches us "you are slaves to the one whom you obey" (v. 16). So are we willing to entrust ourselves to be slaves to Christ Jesus?

Or will we continue to allow ourselves to be slaves to our flesh...
'I feel like watching trash,' says the flesh...so we bow down to it.
'I feel like eating more and more,'...so we feed it.
'I want to buy more to make myself feel good - You deserve it!' says the world...so we give in. When we submit to that which is contrary to God's Word, we are allowing our selves to be enslaved by our flesh, by the world and by our archenemy, Satan himself.

So, like that 9 year old boy, don't we often wish we could just FOLLOW Jesus? Go to church on Sunday, give some money, read a few verses, tell people how godly we think we are and move on with what WE really want to do...get the glory, buy more stuff, eat more junk and gorge ourselves ON ourselves! Or are we willing to lay down our selfish, disgusting hearts and pick up the cross of denial, obedience, and selfless unto death?

Oh, how I desire to be a fully willing slave-servant to my Lord! I fail so terribly often, but praise God for the grace of Jesus as I seek to pursue Him as He chooses to be pursued..by a humble servant with a cross over her shoulder.

Press on and Press in

I just read this incredible quote in reference to John 21:20-22 that I wanted to share.

You may know the scene...I know it all too well. Peter is walking with Jesus...the recently RISEN Jesus, no less!...and he turns and sees John, 'the disciple whom Jesus loved', and possibly with a tone of envy Peter says, "Lord, what about him?"

Jesus has just spent several verses (v. 15-19) laying out the call on Peter's life. He summed it up with "Follow Me." Now Peter turns, sees the "favorite" and asks, 'What about him??' Was Peter concerned for his friend or was he jealous and thinking his own calling was harder, slower moving or less noticed than that of John?

In a recent article I read, Margaret Feinberg says, "[God] can do great things through those who are slow and steady...I need to just press my nose to His shoulder blades." What a great picture! As I press into Jesus, focusing only on HIS call on MY life, I move at His pace and see only Him.
Oh, how I want my life lived to the full and poured out as an offering with my nose pressed to his shoulder blades!

Flowery thoughts?

I love the smell of fresh cut grass or gazing at beautiful flowers in a vase. Both of which soothe my soul. But as I meditated on the truth of 1 Peter 1:23-25, I pondered the connection to the grass clippings my husband was now blowing off the drive way and the vase of flowers that was growing stinky and having to be tossed.

"For you have been born again, not of perishable seed,
but of imperishable,
through the living and enduring word of God.
For 'All men are like grass,
and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;
the grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of the Lord stands forever.'
And this is the word that was preached to you."

We are soon to unzip this tent of flesh and step into eternity. All that surrounds us is perishable...like the grass in my driveway. But the Word of God, the very breath He has breathed on the page of Scripture, is eternal. What eternal words are YOU memorizing? What are you setting your mind on...the temporal (finances, material possessions, even worldly pain and suffering?) or the eternal Word that will outlast all of what we see now? Let's pray for eternal perspectives not 'flowery' thoughts!

A Splash of Greeting

I started digging into 1 Peter 1 this morning. I was even drawn back several times throughout the day. What a rich, rich chapter! God certainly out did Himself with it!

I was able to excavate a beautiful application from the end of verse 2. Peter greets the readers of his letter this way, "Grace and peace be yours in abundance." Isn't that beautiful? Don't we all desire the grace and peace of God in abundance?

The original word translated 'grace' here means to rejoice, it denotes that which causes joy and pleasure, that which creates delight in the recipient or observer. Peter is sprinkling his readers with the grace of God which causes the receiver joy and delight. God's grace sprinkled on others even brings delight to the one passing it on! So Peter would have had pleasure in their receiving of the grace. Do you see that when we pass on God's grace to others, it is so rich and delightful, that we ourselves will be delighted by it!

Now the word translated 'peace' here is eirene and it means tranquility, calm, harmony; it denotes a state of untroubles, undisturbed, well-being. Are we women who carry our troubles on our sleeve? Quick to complain and share our 'woe is me' with anyone willing to pause long enough to get sucked in? Peter is passing on, not only the grace of God, but His peace. God is NOT a complainer, nor should we be, when we are His daughters.

But God spoke an even more specific application to my heart as I pondered what He was saying here through Peter...Am I greeting those I love with the same grace and peace that Peter used to greet the early church family? Am I greeting my children or my husband in the evening with complaints, short-temper and discontentment? Or have I spent time in prayer before my husband arrives home in order to greet him with God's grace and peace?

When my children walk in a room, is my heart joyful and delighted? What does my face and body language demonstrate? As I pondered these moments of my day, I asked the Lord to cause me to be a woman of God's grace and peace; that those He places around me...starting with my own family, would be blessed and even joyful to have been greeted by me. Let's ask Him to so fill us with His grace and peace that we spend the day splashing others with it!