091323 Imitating Christ
1 Peter 3:8
Finally, all of you should be of one mind. Sympathize with each other. Love each other as brothers and sisters. Be tenderhearted, and keep a humble attitude.

Sympathize with each other... Not everything is about me.

Love each other as brothers and sisters... Siblings have to get along. They quickly learn how to not be so touchy & get over offenses before they all get into trouble.

Be tenderhearted, and keep a humble attitude... That is caring & sensitive; read the room, and do not be a know-it-all. 

...be of one mind... This is how we should be relating to one another–with Christ, not our own separate agendas, in common. It is HIS character we imitate =  sympathy, love, tenderheartedness & humility in order for unity to thrive.

Dear Lord Jesus,
Very simply, help me be sympathetic, loving, tenderhearted & humble today. I don’t need to be feisty, bull-headed, or nosey. Those things will not achieve your character I desire. Help me be like you & think like you & I pray in your name, amen.

090823 The Governor’s Custom
Matthew 10:16
Look, I am sending you out as sheep among wolves. So be as shrewd as snakes and harmless as doves. 

There is some fascinating information about the governor’s custom at the time of Jesus death.
Now it was the governor’s custom each year during the Passover celebration to release one prisoner to the crowd—anyone they wanted. 16 This year there was a notorious prisoner, a man named Barabbas. 17 As the crowds gathered before Pilate’s house that morning, he asked them, “Which one do you want me to release to you—Barabbas, or Jesus who is called the Messiah?”  Matthew 27:15-17

Jewish Law suspends all court matters during Passover, and every year Pilate promotes fake compassion and fake mercy at a time when God has commanded his people to solely focus on HIM. It is no coincidence that this political figure has made a way for the center of attention to be on him during a time of year when MANY people are in his town. The “Governor’s Custom” is to disregard the One True Living God entirely.

This little nugget of insight is wisdom in how we relate to government. Politicians love attention and they love power. That will never change. When Jesus talks about us being “innocent” as well as “shrewd” it is the preamble to a conversation he has with his disciple about the government. 
You will stand trial before governors and kings because you are my followers. But this will be your opportunity to tell the rulers and other unbelievers about me.
Matthew 10:18

The politicians are not on the side of Believers. No candidate or office holder will ever truly share our convictions. Jesus has warned us ahead of time that we might not receive justice from them, but that the purpose of our interaction with them is to tell the unbelieving rulers about HIM! This isn’t disturbing news because... (keep reading)
When you are arrested, don’t worry about how to respond or what to say. God will give you the right words at the right time. v.19

This isn’t disturbing news because... the One who has warned us is also our DEFENDER!

Dear Jesus,
Thank you for preparing us in every way for how to live with you in this world that rejects you. Help me and my believing brothers and sister not worry about what will always be a corrupt system. Help us never fall into the trap of relying on human help, and thank you especially for your promise to be our defender. I love you and pray in your name, amen.

​090623 Think About Thinking
2 Corinthians 10:5
We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ.

Rob was teaching from Matthew 26 on Sunday, and had some interesting insight when he got to the part about Judas rebuking Mary for “wasting” expensive oil. And the John 12:6 clarifies that Judas wasn’t concerned for the poor; he loved money. Then, very next thing Judas does is to get money for giving up Jesus. He was focused on the money lost from the bottle of oil; all he was thinking about was money–what does he do when he learns that Jesus is sentenced to death? He tries to give the money back! And Rob said that Satan is more than happy to contribute to our delusions. 

That is so true! Judas is focused on money; he doesn’t consider these thoughts “proud obstacles” and he doesn’t “capture” these “rebellious thoughts.” He just keeps thinking about money. Then, he snaps out of it when he realizes a innocent man is going to die. Satan must have been adding thoughts assuring him they were just going to make Jesus be quiet or leave town. And when the religious leaders don’t undo anything when he gives the money back, Judas is hopeless to the point of taking his own life.

There are 2 lessons in this. First, there are some sins you should just never ever commit. And second, don’t let your thoughts capture you, capture them instead. Compare my thoughts to scripture. Surely, Judas heard Jesus teach about money, surely, Judas knew the Rich Young Ruler’s problem. Instead, Judas go so far up into thinking about and loving money he was even susceptible to the Enemy making his delusions even more delusional.

Romans 12:2 ...Let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

Oh, Lord,
Don’t let me go off on thoughts that I should not be dwelling on. Help me think about what I’m thinking and compare it to what your Word says about it. Help me replace rebellious thoughts with your truth and wisdom & please change the way I think. I love your help, I love you & pray in your Name, Amen.

090523 Another First Day of School
Matthew 28:19-20
Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 20 Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

Today is the first day of a new school year again. It seems like there are a lot of them, but there really aren’t. 

As parents, my husband and I decided that we want our kids to be disciples of Jesus and to be fascinating people. Some parents goals are for their kids to go to Law School or be Doctors, musical virtuosos, or technological geniuses, and they set a course for it early and keep them on it. For the Believer, Discipleship is the course we set for our kids and let God determine where that leads later–where they will serve Him best.

Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you... Jesus’ command, not suggestion, to make & teach disciples starts in my own home. So a successful day isn’t determined by how much fun we have, how many places we go, how many experiences we acquire or how many activities we log. Did we talk about Jesus? Did we take time to study His Word and pray? Did we happen upon a question or discussion and talk about what the Bible says about it? Did we discuss the godly or ungodly characteristics of someone from a book, movie or news article and weigh the consequences of their actions or inaction? Are we infusing Jesus in our lives and conversations more than just prayers before meals and bedtime? 

These daily activities make for Disciples and fascinating humans because they have been trained by Scripture. Physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come. 1 Timothy 4:8

Dear God,
Thank you for our kids. Thank you for 18 years of being able to nurture, raise, encourage, AND DISCIPLE them. May these be fruitful years for us and for our loved ones who are moms and dads who desire to raise godly young men and women who will go out into the world and do the same. I love you, Jesus, and pray in your Name, Amen.

30 January 2023 It’s Simple
John 15:5
Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.

Some Believers mistakenly might think: “Do you think I have all day to seek Jesus for every single thing and run every little thing by him? That’s incredibly time consuming & I have stuff to do!”

A couple weeks ago when Rob was teaching, he posed another question for that hypothetical question... 
Do you really have time to keep making the same mistakes over and over?

Touche!

It sounds like my day isn’t going to belong to me either way I look at it. I’m either going to take time & be led by the Holy Spirit or spend time cleaning up messes I make without Him.
Galatians 5:16 reminds us:
So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. 

I can do whatever I want to do today, but there’s a bigger risk living a life with very few to zero input from the Holy Spirit. But I’m super busy & my intentions are good. Are they?
Galatians 5:17 continues...
The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions. 

Holy Spirit it is! It may feel time consuming, require slower responses from me to others, or require denying what feels good at the time, but I won’t be running around trying to undo what I did when I did stuff without Him. 

Dear God,
​It’s simple; help me remember to pray before I say, seek before I speak & talk before I walk & just simply run everything by you first. It is worth the time; help me not fall into the trap of fooling myself & thinking I have holiness and goodness without you. I do not. I need you, and I appreciate your help, understanding and insight very much. I love you and pray in Jesus’ name, amen.

Colossians 1:28 Don’t Dupe People
So we tell others about Christ, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all the wisdom God has given us. We want to present them to God, perfect in their relationship to Christ.

It’s not that our pastors, teachers and mentors are going to make us perfect in our relationship with Jesus, only Jesus can change a heart. But they can be teachers without compromise always speaking the real truth that’s not always what people want to hear.

Teaching with wisdom... When Rob was teaching last Wednesday night he said, “Sinful patterns are a convenience store we keep well stocked for impulse buying.
The reason we keep doing the same things over and over is because we want to. The dog you feed is the dog that stays. Real repentance refuses to glance at the idol and instead fixates on the Cross.”

We live in a day where our church leaders keep an eye on numbers and sustaining them. Reality is that refusing to sugar coat the Good News of Jesus, that involves repentance by the way, means those numbers will most likely drop. Good. It is very unkind to teach any message that doesn’t involve repentance because that kind of message is inaccurate and doesn’t save. 

People who are sorry for getting caught and people who are sorry for what they’ve done need the same Jesus.

For the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation. There’s no regret for that kind of sorrow. But worldly sorrow, which lacks repentance, results in spiritual death.  2 Corinthians 7:10

Dear God,
Thank you for the godly teachers who have never compromised your Word for popularity and assimilation with society. Thank you for my husband who teaches with wisdom from you. Keep giving him insight and boldness and enthusiasm for teaching and thank you that he doesn’t dupe anyone. Your message is good and clear and perfect and I love you.

9 September 2022

6 September, 2022
John 14:23 New Home
Jesus replied, “All who love me will do what I say. My Father will love them, and we will come and make our home with each of them.

When Rob was teaching on Sunday, he said that if Christ hadn’t intervened and taken our sins away we would be habitual, chronic, eternal liars, cheaters, thieves, adulterers, addicts, etc. None of those things we’ve done can be taken away, we’d never have a clean slate and no do-overs because people don’t have the power to declare ourselves “good”– even if we are really really sorry and full of regret.

But Jesus can forgive us and take all that away forever.

Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

You are not your own... I belong to Jesus, yes, that is true. I live the new life he gives me and that means all my sins are not my own anymore either. He wipes the slate clean for everyone who repents and believes that he did.

And what does he do? My Father will love them, and we will come and make our home with each of them. New Life New Home (not just one day) Every Day!

​31 August 2021
A Stew of Consequences
Hebrews 11:21
It was by faith that Jacob, when he was old and dying, blessed each of Joseph’s sons and bowed in worship as he leaned on his staff.

For most of Jacob’s story, he lives the consequences of his mother’s plotting. We say all the time: Who knows what God would have done without human interference? Maybe he would’ve not had to flee from home, maybe he’d never get ripped off by his uncle (they could have sent for a wife like his father’s parents had done), and maybe he would’ve ended up with just one wife. AND still, all God’s promises would have happened in his life because they happened anyway. He did, in fact, become the father of a whole new nation, but God’s promises without human consequences is way better.

Proverbs 10:22 says it this way:
The blessing of the Lord makes a person rich, and he adds no sorrow with it.

The sorrows we live with are not a result of God’s blessings. 

We learn from Hebrews 11 that in Jacob’s old age he worships leaning on his staff, a staff he probably earned after a literal wrestling match with God.

How many of us look back and wish we could’ve gotten a message to our younger selves before we make really bad decisions? We see Jacob’s mistakes over the years, but he most certainly died a godly man. How so? Because God doesn’t hold our sins against us like he could. God is kind. God knows we are weak. He deals with us like a Father not a mean boss.  (See Psalm 103)

Knowing these truths about God’s character and the default setting of my own character should impact the way I live today. Just because I am like Rebekah and Jacob, doesn’t mean I have to do what they did.

Remember your leaders who taught you the word of God. Think of all the good that has come from their lives, and follow the example of their faith. (Hebrews 13:7) Leaders are human and make mistakes too, but scripture doesn’t say to copy those.

I hope whatever shape I’m in when I’m Jacob’s age, that I am found worshiping God and acknowledging his goodness, even if it’s while leaning on a staff, lying in a bed, or rolling around in a wheelchair–and not wallowing in my own stew of consequences.

Dear God,
Look what you do! In spite of our best efforts to thwart your plans, you still blessed this man and his whole family for generations. They mess things up just like I do, but you never tell us to sleep in the bed we’ve made. You get us out of the bed and help us make it. You are indeed kind and good, and I love you with all my heart, and thank you, and pray in Jesus’ name, amen.

​30 August 2021
Libation
2 Timothy 4:6
As for me, my life has already been poured out as an offering to God. The time of my death is near. 

The Drink Offering is the one that is poured out. All the other sacrifices in the Old Testament had some sort of shared consumption aspect, but the Drink Offering was poured out and not used by anyone–seemingly “wasted.” My African Studies professor in college talked about “libation” and similar tribal practices where drinks are ceremoniously poured out on the ground for the people being remembered. Recently, the internet had a viral picture last week of a restaurant with 13 chairs with 13 beers at an empty table commemorating the 13 servicemen who just died tragically in Afghanistan. Those beers eventually got poured down a drain; no one ever drank them. But every American understands that it was most certainly not a waste of beer. 

When Paul talks about his life being a Drink Offering, it means he gives everything of himself to the One he serves. Some would look at his life and see it being a total waste looking at all he had accomplished in the past and all he gave up. But the same man who described his life a Drink Offering also wrote this: So, my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and immovable. Always work enthusiastically for the Lord, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless. (1 Corinthians 15:58) If everything I do for the Lord is never useless, then giving him my life as a drink offering is no waste of time, talent, or resources at all.

Paul also wrote: Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people. (Colossians 3:23) Regular people might not understand why Believers do what we do; it looks like a waste to them. Serving at church every Sunday seems like a waste of a perfectly good day off. Not getting even with people who are mean seems like we let people “walk all over us.” And seeking God’s will in all we do is constantly misunderstood as backwards and irrelevant for modern times. But it is not. For those who follow Jesus, we choose to give our lives back to the One who gave his life or us.

So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

Dear God,
Help me remember that I willingly give my life as an offering to YOU. My goals are not to get you to do things for me but for me to be shown by you how to serve you today. Help me go places and have conversations that are lead by you and not of a personal or worldly agenda. I love you and thank you for all you have done for me, and I pray in Jesus’ name, amen.

​11 August 2021
Changing the Way I Think
Romans 12:2
Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.

I have learned that the one thing is that is the worst thing for my heart is to compare myself to someone else. Whether it is what they are doing or what they have, comparing it to myself & my stuff is not good. The reason that it’s dangerous is that what I’m seeing is often largely inaccurate.

Moms are the worst. When they talk to each other they can often get carried away with their ideal over reality. When our kids were young, I met a fellow homeschooling mom who shared about making costumes and authentic food from the classic literature they were reading. I felt really inadequate as my homeschooling day never looked liked that. A successful day for me would be one day in a row without someone crying over math. I quickly solved my problem by not hanging out with that mom anymore. She actually had one kid who was into it, but the costumes and food was torture for the other one who wanted to just play outside. That’s just it: We do not even get an accurate picture of what we are comparing ourselves to! So, to think, Aw, I wish I was like her... is actually impossible because not even her is like her!

Let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think...
Our feelings lie to us; everyone knows that. What I must also remember is that my perception can lie to me too. What I covet about someone else’s life probably isn’t accurate in the first place. Don’t keep up with the Joneses; don’t look over the fence; the grass is not greener. All these are secular sayings that don’t actually change the way I think. Only God helps me change the way I think. It is a power from him that I need that I do not have on my own.

Hebrews 13:5
Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” 

Only God can make such a fittingly bold claim: Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you. That’s where I get the ability and confidence to not compare myself or my life to anyone else’s. If God were absent, I would totally be relying on inaccurate humans to navigate life & copy their behavior so hopefully things turn out well for me. But God is not absent; he is ever present! God is dealing personally with me, providing for me personally, instructing me personally – not in a group. So I don’t need to compare myself to the group of people that is not me.

Dear God,
Thank you for rescuing me from being discontent by changing the way I think. Thank you that I don’t need to copy anyone else but simply trust you to equip me for my day not someone else’s. Thank you for what I have and for the heart to be glad for others to have what they have. You are kind and generous to all not just some, and I love you, and I just can’t thank you enough, and I pray in Jesus’ name, amen.