Relishing in His Goodness and Beauty

I feel like I'm having an "epiphany" of sorts.  Some of my ways of thinking are being shaped, squished and reformed all at once by various sources.  However, as I step back and reflect on it all, I see the fingerprints of God all over this reshaping.

I don't know if you've ever experienced something like this, but I feel like half of myself is stepping away and evaluating my other half.  I am watching "how I've lived" in my thought life and I'm asking if this has been the right way or if perhaps there is a better way.  The "how I've lived" has been shaped by a quiet fear of the unknown, fear of everything suddenly crashing down and as a result even in the moments of great joy, I find myself holding back a little back because I somehow think that if I get too excited it might all fall apart.  So my thought process is, "If I don't get too high in my enjoyment, then when I fall it won't hurt so much." As I step back from these thoughts and evaluate them, I realize that I am allowing the unknown, the fear of the future steal my present joy.

In my edge of the world, spring has managed to sneak through on a few days and on one absolutely gorgeous day, I was on a run when I was struck by the beauty that surrounded me - the green grass, the beautiful blue sky, the singing birds, the cool breeze and the frogs croaking in the pond.  It was one of those moments of complete joy, where at the same time I found myself hesitating from entering in and then I questioned myself, "If the ratio of God's goodness and beauty far exceeds the moments of evil and sadness, why do I find myself more occupied with the thoughts and fears of evil than resting in the beauty of God's grace, goodness and beauty that constantly surrounds?"

The day after I asked myself this question, I was bombarded (in a good way) by Scripture and I was overwhelmed as I saw the invitation of God to live not in a place of constantly being prepared for the bottom to drop out, but rather being able to relish in His goodness:

from Psalm 139:

You encompass me behind and before

and lay your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,

so high I cannot attain it.

from Psalm 146:

The Lord looses those that are bound;

the Lord opens the eyes of the blind; the Lord lifts up

those who are bowed down; the Lord loves the righteous...

the Lord shall reign forever.

from Isaiah 61:

To give them a garland instead of ashes,

the oil of gladness instead of mourning,

the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit, that

they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord,

that he may be glorified.

from Proverbs 4:

I have taught you the way of wisdom;

I have led you in the paths of uprightness.

When you walk, your step will not be hampered;

and if you run, you will not stumble.  Keep hold of instruction;

do not let go; guard her for she is your life...

the path of the righteous is like the light of the dawn, which shines

brighter and brighter until full day.

from Luke 1:

This was the oath God swore to our father Abraham:

to set us free from the hands of our enemies, free to worship without fear,

holy and righteous in his sight all the days of our lives.

from Exodus 15:

In your unfailing love, O Lord, 

you lead the people whom you have redeemed. And by

your invincible strength you will guide

them to your holy dwelling.

You will bring them in and plant them, O Lord,

in the sanctuary which your hands have established.

from 1 Peter 2:

For you were going astray like sheep, but

now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.

These Scriptures overwhelmed me with the grace of God and His promises to lead and guide His people.  I realized that I am unable to contain the glory of God in my small meager self - it far, far exceeds any capacity that I have.  Yet that inability does not disqualify me from being able to drink it in and relish in His goodness.

During Lent, my pastor gave each person a seed to remind us about who we are in Christ.  As I've held that seed in my hand and reflected on it, I've continued to feel more layers fall off of "trying to be" something for God; that burden is too heavy.  However, the ability to solely respond to the glory of God and to soak it in as a plant soaks in the sun is a beautiful and freeing.  That is what I see, that is what I feel as I read these verses over and over.  Freedom to be, to live in a place of joy held by the shepherd and guardian of my soul.

In Christ,

For more thoughts on this theme check out my other posts:
Worrying
360 Vision: Not Lacking Anything
Being Changed by Contentment

The Laughter of Love

So I told you in my last post that I would spare you from having to read Surprised by Laughter but still get the benefits.  Here are a few quotes from the very end of the book:

• In regards to laughter and God Lewis reminds us, "When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed but increased."  Our laughter therefore, increases when we keep it in its proper place. pg 445
• I picked this quote because so often Christians talk about "struggling" to put God first.  As this quote captures, I've learned that when God is first, everything else in life is so much richer and enjoyable - which in turns makes it not so hard to allow God His proper place.
• To know God's mirth, however one must first know Him and His love.  He then forgives those who come to Him.  It is the act of forgiveness that transforms those who would submit to the comedy of His grace.  Therefore, laughter must be linked to love and forgiveness if it would last. pg 448
• You know I love to discuss grace.  I've never connected the concept of grace and laughter before reading this quote.  But grace truly is a light load.  Perhaps if we as Christians would move grace from the serious, theological debate, to actual living in it and enjoying the benefits of it - it would be more contagious to the world?!
• "We must, as it so happens, give our own lives for others, but even while we're doing it, I think we're meant to enjoy our Lord, and in Him, our friends, our food, our sleeps, our jokes, and the birds and the frosty sunrise."   For this reason, just as hell is the only place outside of heaven where we can be safe from the dangers of love, heaven is the only place where we can be endlessly immersed in the laughter of love.  The charity of God transforms natural laughter into a "tuned and obedient instrument," of Love Himself.  It began with the Creation, was lost and limited, until Christ returns.  It began with Creation, was lost in the Fall, but was gloriously reclaimed through the Resurrection and dispersed through Pentecost... Most people expect the worst from an encounter with God.  Our guilt and shames chase us away from the gladness of His presence.  He must then become the Hound of Heaven pursuing us, not simply to chide, or punish us, but to embrace us and lick us with His love." (pages 451-452).

Let Him embrace you today with the strength of His love.  May the result of that love bring love, laughter and joy into your life with Him and with others.

In Christ,

The ladder of grace

The last couple of days I have been captured by Romans 5:1-5.  Here it is in the AMP version:

THEREFORE, SINCE we are justified (acquitted, declared righteous, and given a right standing with God) through faith, let us [grasp the fact that we] have [the peace of reconciliation to hold and to [b]enjoy] peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One).

2Through Him also we have [our] access (entrance, introduction) by faith into this grace (state of God's favor) in which we [firmly and safely] stand. And let us rejoice and exult in our hope of experiencing and enjoying the glory of God.

3Moreover [let us also be full of joy now!] let us exult and triumph in our troubles and rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that pressure and affliction and hardship produce patient and unswerving endurance.

4And endurance (fortitude) develops maturity of [c]character (approved faith and [d]tried integrity). And character [of this sort] produces [the habit of] [e]joyful and confident hope of eternal salvation.

5Such hope never disappoints or deludes or shames us, for God's love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit Who has been given to us.

As I have been sitting in reflection of these verses, I've been picturing a ladder of grace. Sometimes we find ourselves in situations that are overwhelming. The LORD understands this and I believe these verses in Romans 5 give us a clear picture of the ladder we can climb as we work through these troubles.

The foundation of this ladder is justification.  Any difficult journey you embark on needs to be rooted in justification.  The AMP did a good job explaining justification for us: being declared right with God.  Because of that truth you can confidently grab a hold of the first rung on the ladder: peace with God.  This peace with God, means that we have been reconciled unto Him.  The second rung is access to God.  Because of our justification and our peace with God, we have complete access to God on our journey.

I'm going to skip for a moment to the very top of the ladder: sharing in God's glory.  Often as we climb ladders, we continue to look up to see where we are going and how far away we are from the top.  Romans 5:2 reminds us that God allows us to share in His glory.  There is a weight and a permanence to the glory of God so remember as you are walking through that the end result will be God's glory.  When His glory comes it will have a permanent change and He allows us a share in that!

The sides of the ladder, I have marked as grace and love.  I believe these are the stabilizers for the rungs.  Grace is God's enabling power given to us for the journey that we are on.  Love is how He continuously feels about us.

So now we can look back down to our ladder and see that we are on the third rung, joy.  If you see the last steps (justification, peace and access), and what you are surrounded by (grace and love) the immensity of situations begins to fade away and you can have joy, because you know that God is taking you somewhere and He is doing something.  This joy allows you to take the next step to patience.

As I'm sure you've learned by now, God's time table and our time tables do not always line up.  But when you see that God is up to something, He loves you and He is helping you, you can have patience in your circumstances.  The next step is character!  Yes, your character can grow and deepen as you walk through times of trouble.  And last of all there is HOPE.  Romans 5:5 says that the hope we get up this ladder will not disappoint us!  God has poured out His Holy Spirit upon us as we journeyed to the top.

If you've ever watched the Biggest Loser, you've seen the step ladder that continuously rotates.  Depending on your situation, it might not be a 1,2,3 and you are at the top.  Rather, it might be like the rotating ladder where we have to go back and immerse ourselves in these truths.  But I believe this visual helps us to see why we can have joy and hope as we walk in and through hard times.

In Christ,

PS Feel free to print out the visual and look back at the verses with the ladder in mind.

A Refreshing look at Isaiah 55

I'm on vacation so here is a recycled post. It is a good reminder:)!
Isaiah 55 contains a variety of verses that probably are very familiar to you.  These verses are usually discussed and remembered in small, separate sections.  While, the individual verses are beautiful and contain beautiful truths when viewed alone, a reading of them side by side reveals God's love in a way that is overwhelmingly beautiful. 
Here is the entirety of Isaiah 55:

The Lord says, "All you who are thirsty,

come and drink.

Those of you who do not have money,

come, buy and eat!

Come buy wine and milk

without money and without cost.

2 Why spend your money on something that is not real food?

Why work for something that doesn't really satisfy you?

Listen closely to me, and you will eat what is good;

your soul will enjoy the rich food that satisfies.

3 Come to me and listen;

listen to me so you may live.

I will make an agreement with you that will last forever.

I will give you the blessings I promised to David.

4 I made David a witness of my power for all nations,
a ruler and commander of many nations.

5 You will call for nations that you don't yet know.

And these nations that do not know you will run to you

because of the Lord your God,

because of the Holy One of Israel who honors you."

6 So you should look for the Lord before it is too late;

you should call to him while he is near.

7 The wicked should stop doing wrong,

and they should stop their evil thoughts.

They should return to the Lord so he may have mercy on them.

They should come to our God, because he will freely forgive them.

8 The Lord says, "My thoughts are not like your thoughts.

Your ways are not like my ways.

9 Just as the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.

10 Rain and snow fall from the sky

and don't return without watering the ground.

They cause the plants to sprout and grow,

making seeds for the farmer

and bread for the people.

11 The same thing is true of the words I speak.

They will not return to me empty.

They make the things happen that I want to happen,

and they succeed in doing what I send them to do.

12 "So you will go out with joy

and be led out in peace.

The mountains and hills will burst into song before you,

and all the trees in the fields will clap their hands.

13 Large cypress trees will grow where thornbushes were.

Myrtle trees will grow where weeds were.

These things will be a reminder of the Lord's promise,

and this reminder will never be destroyed.

This entire passage of Scripture is about Jesus Christ and the amazing beauty and freedom of His love!  That He offers us life, for free, all we have to do is COME!  Throughout this passage, God continually invites us to COME to Him and listen to Him.  The things He is offering to us as a result of coming to Him are good for us, rich and satisfying!

Sandwhiched throughout this chapter are additonal verses that we as believers today can take as encouragements to what God is doing and wants to do:

You will call for nations that you don't yet know.

And these nations that do not know you will run to you

because of the Lord your God,

because of the Holy One of Israel who honors you.

Beloved, the nations should be running to us!  Let us in confidence, call forth to the nations because God will set them free!

In the middle of this chapter, are the verses: "my thoughts are not your thoughts and my ways are not your ways".  When viewed by themselves, these verses can cause people to be afraid of coming to the Lord in their need, because they think He is saying, "don't question me and you won't understand why such and such has happened."  However, if you view these verses in context, you will see that is a misunderstanding.  God says, "They should come to the Lord, because He will freely forgive them." The point of these verses is that we can come to God and He will freely forgive us.  This incredible idea was, is and always will be GOD's IDEA not our idea.  

So you will go out with joy

and be led out in peace.

Are joy and peace what is leading you in your walk with God right now?  If not, God says they can lead you.  We can't force it, but what I am learning, is that one of the main reasons why I don't experience what God has to offer is because I often have a misunderstanding about His truth and how He operates.  That misunderstanding causes a barrier in my ability to walk in His truth.  When I sit at His beautiful feet and allow His love to change the lie(s) I've been living under, I then begin to live out the freedom He is offering.

Finally, the beauty of the Truth contained in these verses has the ability to bring powerful changes.  "Large cypress trees will grow where thornbushes were. Myrtle trees will grow where weeds were." Our God is a God of redemption and change.  When He replaces things in our lives He doesn't just bring an equal change, He brings a change that far exceeds the junk that was there before.  So give Him full access, it is worth it!

The reason Isaiah 55 is so beautiful is because it is the GOOD NEWS in God's own words!  Our all-powerful God is wanting to set the nations free and offer His forgiveness without reserve.  We have a message of freedom, life and redemption!  Let's walk in it.

In Christ,

Obtaining Freedom Part 1: Releasing yourself and others from Guilt and Shame

Today I am going back to my archives; I needed to hear this again. This is part 1 of a 4 part series I wrote on obtaining freedom. If this sounds familiar to you then it means you've been reading my blog for almost a year now:)

I think God is on a mission to release His children from the burden of Shame and Guilt. I really mean it: He wants us to walk in the reality of FREEDOM in our everyday life. Jesus died to set us free and yet we sit so entangled by sin much of the time.

So here is what I've been starting to comprehend. During the last 6 years the Lord has done a great job of changing me from striving and living by being guilt motivated. One of the revelations I have received has not only freed me from walking in guilt but has also freed me up to see others in a non-judgemental way and to just love them.

It is all boiling down for me to the power of forgiveness. When Jesus died on the cross, he forgave ALL sins past, present, future. Not just the sins of Christians but also the sins of non-Christians. The payment has been paid in FULL!

1 Peter 3:18

"For Christ also died for sins once for all,

the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God,

having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit."

I think sometimes as Christians we get so caught up in the fact that we still sin, or we see the sin in others and we want someone to make payment for it. In regards to ourselves, we walk around in guilt and shame because we went down that road that we knew we weren't supposed to go down. We think by feeling guilty about it we will somehow "pay" God back for failing Him. But the reason Jesus died is because we would NEVER be able to pay Him back for our failings. This truth then is also true for others. I don't need to make others feel guilty or hold unforgiveness over them because they don't need to pay me back for the wrongs they have done against me. The payment has already been paid in full by Jesus.

Therefore, repentance and forgiveness for a Christian is not about carrying around a burden of guilt and shame but it is about coming into agreement with what God says is true. The Bible says:

Luke 15:10

"In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing

in the presence of the angels of God over one

sinner who repents."

I always viewed this verse as "the angels were rejoicing" until one of my pastors preached a sermon on joy and pointed out that the angels are in the presence of rejoicing. Who then is rejoicing ~ God! God is thrilled when we turn to Him. He is rejoicing that we finally get it and He wants to celebrate with us. His arms are wide open to receive us.

My encouragement to myself and others is to throw off the cloak of shame and guilt and our misunderstandings of repentance and forgiveness. You really will want to turn to God when you see how He feels about you and that the payment has already been paid ~ so move on your sins have been cast as far as the East is from the West. Then when you see how much God loves you and rejoices over you in your repentance it will free you to love others freely! You will want them to experience the freedom that is found by coming into agreement with the truths of who God is.

Flipping for Jesus

Light Bulb No.2 by Caveman

Last night, I had my second session of Breaking Free. If you ever have a chance to do a Beth Moore study, I would highly recommend it! She believes in the power of being in God's Word and that is where she has you live during the study; being in God's Word brings life.

Last night we flipped back and forth between Isaiah 53 and Isaiah 61 to see what Jesus gave up so that we could have freedom! It was incredible. I've been a Christian for 23 years, went to a Christian school and had Bible class everyday, have rarely missed a church service and yet I had never seen these two passages discussed next to each other. I've heard of and read Isaiah 53, in fact Beth said that is the section of Scripture most quoted in the New Testament. I of course, love Isaiah 61. I think it is an incredible set of verses. But seeing the two next to each other, flipped another switch on in my heart.

At first, it was a little annoying flipping back and forth between Isaiah 53 and Isaiah 61, Isaiah 53, Isaiah 61, Isaiah 53, Isaiah 61... you get the point. But then excitement began to arise as I understood what was taking place and then I couldn't wait to see what took place between Isaiah 53 and Isaiah 61!

Below, I will give you the benefit of seeing what glorious things Jesus did, what He gave up so that you could have FREEDOM! So if you have a minute please print out these verses and do the flipping yourself, you will be amazed:

From Breaking Free by Beth Moore pg. 29
1.Isaiah 53:2; Isaiah 61:3 Christ was like a root out of dry ground so we could be a planting of the Lord.
2.Isaiah 53:2; Isaiah 61:3 Christ's beauty was veiled so ours could be revealed.
3.Isaiah 53:3; Isaiah 61:1-2 Christ was despised and rejected so we could be favored and accepted.
4.Isaiah 53:3; Isaiah 61:3 Christ became a man of sorrows so we could become a people of gladness.
5.Isaiah 53:7; Isaiah 61:1 Christ was imprisoned and oppressed so we could be released from prison.
6.Isaiah 53:5; Isaiah 61:3; 2 Cor 5:21 Christ was crushed by our iniquities so we could become His righteousness.
7.Christ remained silent so we could proclaim his great salvation (Isaiah 53:11; Isaiah 61:1-2)

Beloved, I pray this hits your heart like it hit mine. We all know what Jesus did on the cross. We know that we are saved by grace. But He also did so much more! Do you see the many things He intentionally chose to suffer in order that you could have specific areas of freedom here on earth? He paid an incredible price for our freedom. He is offering you so much more than a mundane life of “being a good Christian.” He is offering you beauty, favor, joy, gladness, freedom from the chains, His righteousness and the opportunity to proclaim who He is and what He has done to others!

He alone is worthy to have full access to your heart today. Give it to Him and see what He will do!

Smorgasbord Tuesday: Joy

So we are currently going through the fruit of the Spirit on our Smorgasbord Tuesdays. Last week the fruit was love. How did it go for you (please share:)? It was actually harder than I thought it would be. The Lord gave more than enough opportunities to show love; and frankly a lot of the time, I did not feel like loving. I kept hearing "ask the Holy Spirit for love" and I found myself saying, "I don't feel like loving right now, so I'm not going to ask." Just being honest. So I think I went down on my number instead of up. I'm still in agreement with what I said last week, we need the Holy Spirit to help us to love but we do need to ask even when we don't feel like it.

This week's fruit is joy. I've been thinking about the topic all week and I want to say joy is deep and wide and I am only going to skim the surface of it with what I've been thinking about.

I Thessalonians 5:16-18 Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

James 1:2-4 Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

The Bible makes it pretty clear that joy is an essential to a successful walk in faith. People want to know what God's will is it's pretty simple: be joyful ALWAYS, pray continually, always give thanks! Yikes, not so easy is it? That is where the Holy Spirit comes in again. As I said last week, we need to invite the Holy Spirit to do what He is more than willing to do. Our flesh, as I experienced last week, wants nothing to do with God's way. It wants to rebel and say no. Joy in whatever circumstance you face I would surmise is impossible if you are not receiving it through the Holy Spirit. We don't have to be joyful at the circumstance, but joy is what gets us through the circumstance. Perhaps joy is the light that bring us through the darkness. My former Pastor Shane Holden said, "No matter how bad things get in this life, you always know that when this life is over we are going to heaven and then things don't look so bad." James said consider is pure joy because of what it will produce. Jesus, "endured the cross because of the joy set before Him (Hebrews 12:2)." He is our example of how to be joyful and we can only learn this kind of joy by fixing our eyes in Him.

The world views faith as a crutch for weak-minded people. They just don't see or understand, how tough it actually is to walk in God's way. He asks us to do some pretty hard things but guess what, He doesn't expect or ask us to do it on our own. Instead, He asks us to surrender to Him and allow Him to work and move through us to do the impossible. So this week work on inviting the Holy Spirit to bring joy into your life ~ no matter what circumstance you find yourself in at this moment in time.

Okay, so I said joy is complicated and deep. This is just one tiny facet of joy. I am passing along a sermon which hits it from a completely different angle but I personally found it very informative in understanding what joy actually is:

"Advent Joy" by Elliot Pollasch 11/30/08

In addition I blogged about this topic a couple weeks back: Joy

Finally, John Eldredge addresses joy a lot in his book Walking with God, so that's another place to begin diving deeper.

Oh, and you can always read the Bible: there are 248 verses containing the word joy!

So don't forget to write in your journal about where you are with the concept of joy, so you can look back over the upcoming weeks to see what you've learned.

Be blessed,

JOY

Nehemiah 8:10

Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.

I am in an intercessors group and a couple weeks ago we took the time to pray for each individually. The theme that emerged while people prayed for me was: JOY. People prayed the Nehemiah verse over me. One lady discussed how this joy was meant to be a wall. In Nehemiah the people had just finished building the wall of Jerusalem for protection. Now Nehemiah was telling them that in their lives joy should be their spiritual walls, it should be the thing they hide behind for protection.

Isn't God good? This was a word I needed to hear at the time and need it even more now. I've been consciously trying to apply this in my life. Vacation provided an "easy opportunity" to apply joy but the second I left my vacation it has been something I have had to fight for. And it is worth fighting for.

James 1:2

Consider it pure joy, my brothers whenever you face

trials of many kinds, because you know that the

testing of your faith develops perseverance.

Joy is one of the fruits of the Spirit. I've really been learning that you have to ask for these things when you don't have them. God is a generous God and He gives generously to those who ask. During times of testing is a good time to ask.

My daughter woke up this morning singing "I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart." I'm so grateful for the opportunity to be around my kids everyday. They continue to teach me childlike faith and joy. It is easy to be joyful when you trust the hearts of your parents. I suppose, it would be easier to have joy if we trust the heart of our Father.

I will blog about it in the near future but the biggest thing I learned on vacation is that God is SOOO Big and we are soooooo small. It is a joy to know that I am a daughter of God. May you find joy in the Lord this day; may it be your strength through the ups and downs of life.

PS Thank you for all your prayers for little Nevaeh. She still needs them! http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/nevaehw