My Father in Heaven is Perfect - Latest Blog Entries

Stoke Up the DeLorean

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:32:00 -0500

One of my favorite movies was “Back to the Future.” Although the thought of time travel has always fascinated me, I’ve always figured it was just a fantasy, but what if it isn’t? Scientists have now discovered sub-atomic particles that seem to travel faster than the speed of light. They say that this not only challenges Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, but it means that time travel may indeed be possible. Maybe we have a lot more to learn about our universe and the God we aspire to know.

Wouldn’t it be great to time travel to ancient Egypt and have a front row seat to the Exodus? Or hear the Angels singing on the night that Jesus was born? How thrilling to watch God create the world and stand at the foot of the cross and hear what Jesus actually said. Time travel would certainly solve a lot of theological debates. If we could actually time travel, sitting in the garden on resurrection morning would be one of the most popular tours, I think I might be first in line.

I have a friend who was reading a book written in the late 1800’s. The author of that book was convinced that Jesus was coming around the turn of the 19^th century due to the complicated invention of the sewing machine. From his point of reference, he saw no other possibilities. He would be shocked to see us here over a hundred years later still waiting for Jesus to come. I wonder what he would think if he caught us reading books, playing games and talking to each other with the little rectangles we hold in our hands. Progress and time really are relative.

In the past, scientists have laughed at Bible miracles, but maybe this new discovery will open some scientific eyes that we are still pretty much in the dark about how this universe operates. Two of the most outrageous Biblical stories relate to God manipulating time.

Joshua finished a battle while God stopped the sun:

“So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies, as it is written in the Book of Jashar. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day.” (Joshua 10:13)

Hezekiah asked the Lord for more time and God reversed the sunset for that day as a sign:

“‘This is the LORD’s sign to you that the LORD will do what he has promised: I will make the shadow cast by the sun go back the ten steps it has gone down on the stairway of Ahaz.’” So the sunlight went back the ten steps it had gone down.” (Isaiah 38:7)

Another story that is more about supernatural travel than time travel is the story of Philip and the Ethiopian:

“Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.

“As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?”And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea.” (Acts 8:35-40)

When I read these stories, I get the idea that nothing is impossible for God; if He can turn the sun back and whisk Phillip away to another town, He can probably combine these and move people through time. Maybe our world is an exception while the rest of the universe is purring along like a synchronized time machine. Perhaps God uses the boundary of time to slow down life on planet earth because that is what it takes for humans to see the difference between God’s government and Satan’s and end death and war forever.

The good news is that God is not flustered by our time-bound events; He doesn’t have to act in haste because He sees the end from the beginning. Someone once said that God steps in and out of time like we do the bathwater. Everything God allows is by His wisdom. Just as God holds time in His hands, He holds our futures through life, death and into eternal life. We have nothing to fear of the past or future when we trust in Him. Nothing can separate us from God’s love not even death—yes, even death in God’s hands, can be reversed. Just as He has provided a season and time for everything on this earth, He also has a time for everything that was ever hidden to be made known. Someday, when Jesus comes, maybe we will all time travel together through the centuries while God answers our questions.

God created time:

“And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years.” (Genesis 1:13-15)

God manipulates time:

“He changes times and seasons.” (Dan. 2:21)

God is not bound by time:

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.” (Rev. 1:8)

For wanna-be time travelers like us, that’s really good news!

Forgiveness Requires Remembering

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 12:02:00 -0500

Here I go again-- living as a stranger in a new town. It's actually nothing new for me; I moved over forty times before I was even twenty. I left my family without a social security number and the only people who truly knew me were the five members of my immediate family. The impact of that first twenty years has affected me for decades. I still have anxiety when people ask me where I'm from because I grew up without a hometown, high school class or even a church family. I was always new in town. I grew up living in everything from an abandoned sawmill to campgrounds, motels and cabins without running water. I reached my forties before I realized that we were often homeless because we never spoke if it that way.

Through the years I learned how to cope with this lack of community by hiding my past. When people asked where I grew up I told them one of forty places to keep it simple. When they asked where I went to high school, I told the lie that I had been taught--that I'd been home-schooled. Later as my conscience caught up to me, I made a joke out of it by saying, "I was home-schooled, but my parents forgot to buy the books." But the truth was that I was no schooled. The loss of identity in my life is enormous.

I don’t mind moving. I feel like that mom in Chocolat who leaves town when the weather shifts. But it wasn't always that way; in my adolescence I was like her daughter, crying for my parents to stay and put down some roots. When I was seventeen, I was often depressed because I wanted to go to school and have friends and learn, but my mom said, "Snap out of it and go make something good to eat." And so I did. I learned to stuff down my pain by eating “Something good to eat.” Of course by now I realize that it's NOT good, hardly worth eating, and if I keep doing that it will kill me. At every church there are a few well meaning people who say stuff like just watch "Forks over Knives" or just eat the CHIP diet. These things are wonderful, but I grew up vegan; the problem is not what I am eating, but what's been eating me.

So why would I abuse myself with food for over two decades after leaving my family? For the most part I was struggling for authenticity in relationship with my family. There are topics in my family that are taboo to talk about. If I talk about them I might be ostracized. For years I kept silent because I was taught to ignore my own pain including my own life history to keep other people comfortable. In the words of Carol Cannon, “I learned to give myself away before I even had a self.” I wanted to be a good Christian, but I was taught that a good Christians should never show anger, always forgive and forget and never bring the topic up again. Of course if I forgot every time I burned myself, I would end up a bandaged mess. That is essentially what happened in my life emotionally--I kept trying to forget, I kept trying to stuff down the anger, but the by-product was that I compulsively ate food to soothe myself.

I didn’t realize that anger is not wrong, that it’s okay to be angry at the loss of childhood, education and socialization. It okay to remember what happened, because to erase the past would be like I never lived at all. It’s wrong to sin in anger, it’s wrong to hold a grudge, but it is not wrong to remember and to feel angry that it happened. Jesus taught that we should forgive each other in love and not hold things against each other; but He also taught that we should be accountable for what we have done to other people.

Part of forgiveness is remembering. Anything else is denial. As a matter of fact we can’t really forgive someone for hitting our car, unless we first assess the damage. I am allowing myself to remember so I can realize what happened in order to forgive more fully. Then I can forgive others--not just for them, but to set myself free from this cycle of pain and food addiction. How others handle my honesty is between them and God. I have learned I can allow them to have their own feelings of anger and sadness.

After His resurrection, Jesus forgave Peter, but He didn't forget the fact that Peter had denied Him three times. Jesus clarified what Peter needed to do for restoration. "Peter," He said, "Feed my sheep." He said it three times because Peter had denied Him three times. Both of them had to acknowledge what happened for Peter to experience restoration. Jesus doesn’t ask us to hide our past or pretend things didn’t happen because it is only truth—most importantly the truth Jesus lived and taught by His example that sets us free.

It’s a new day. God’s promises are new every morning. I am making an effort not to bring the foods into my new home that would make me sick. At the same time, I am making an effort to live authentically and share my life story so that I have less need to numb out with food. Authentic living is the only way to live free.

“So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” John 8:36

For angry, hurting children like us, that’s really good news!

©2011 Cherilyn Christen Clough

Five Things I Learned From 911

Sun, 11 Sep 2011 11:18:00 -0500

Never take life for granted. I had planned a birthday party for a friend whose birthday was that day. She was turning 30 so with the naivety of youth, I had all black table cloths and balloons to signify how bleak turning 30 would be. I of course exchanged them for blue before the party, but we would no longer take life so for granted after that.
Never judge people by their looks. I had to return something at Walmart the next day. When I got to the store there was a crowd near returns and they immediately locked the doors behind me. I felt panicked especially since I was standing right next to a middle-eastern man wearing a turban. In my ignorance I imagined there was a bomb and he was probably the suicide bomber. Then I heard the president speaking over the loud speakers and when the national anthem played the man standing next to me broke down with tears streaming down his cheeks. I put my hand out to his and everyone standing around him held hands or put their hands on his. We were all Americans touched by this horrible tragedy, but he wore a face that would remain suspect for years.
I don’t have to be afraid of Jesus coming. I was in the shower with shampoo in my eyes when my husband came running in to say that planes had flown into the twin towers and “Jesus is coming.” We had been taught that such events would happen before Jesus came. I had been taught that I had to be perfect and sinless before Jesus came so I jumped out of the shower with shampoo in my hair sobbing, “But I am not ready yet!” I no longer fear Jesus coming because I now understand that He who began a good work in me will complete it as long as I live in relationship with Him. Salvation is not arbitrary it is my choice to live in harmony with God’s law of other-centered love.
God loves Everyone. When others danced at Bin Laden’s death, I knew there was no cause for rejoicing because every human is a child of God whether reconciled to Him or not. God loves all of His children even when He sees there is no hope for them. When the cancer of sin destroys a soul, friends of Jesus do not rejoice--we mourn that such damage has been done to all-- even the perpetrators of pain. According to Paul in the Bible, our real enemy is not in flesh and blood, but the dark ruler of this world. There will be much more evil on this earth as long as we live in this sinful world. I will rejoice when Jesus comes to set everything right by eliminating hate and violence forever.
The Kingdom of God is within us. Jesus is the one who said this, yet how few Christians take it to heart. True, we can’t feed all the starving children or save the planet, but we can live so that our own foot print is smaller. We can help one hungry person at a time. We can put less waste in the landfill. We can act with love and peace toward one person at a time. We can be a part of a solution by loving the ostracized even when everyone else walks away. Even if my own family or neighbors chose to live outside the principles of God’s kingdom, I can still choose to live out God’s kingdom life even now before Jesus comes.

Who's Afraid of Fire?

Fri, 09 Sep 2011 19:26:00 -0500

I’ll never forget my eleventh birthday when I begged my parents to let me go to a Pathfinder* Camporee near Goldendale, Washington. I was tired after the long drive, but afraid to go to sleep because I kept imagining wild animals all around me. Then I realized I could hear the crackle of the roaring campfire and I calmed down. Wild animals are usually afraid of fire, so that fire was my friend-- providing warmth, light and protection to comfort me on my first night away from home.

The next evening I celebrated my birthday with my local club members by eating chocolate cupcakes before we joined thousands of kids marching in step down to “Campfire.” As the sunset faded into darkness, the program of singing, skits and awards ended with a huge fireworks display. I sang and watched the show until I was startled by a succession of loud booms. Suddenly the entire forest seemed on fire all around me. My leader called for us to fall in. We seemed to march in slow motion until we were out of the natural amphitheater and back into the wide clearing where our tents offered a flimsy protection from the smoke. I had been taught to face straight ahead while marching, but my eyes couldn’t look away from the wall of flames behind me. My heart was racing as we silently followed our leaders back to camp. Holding each other’s shaking hands, we formed a circle and prayed until they announced that the fire was contained and we could all go to sleep. I don’t remember sleeping much that night, but I did get the concept that fire is not always safe.

Fire--it can take life or preserve it. The element is the same, but our relationship with fire determines how we experience it or if we will even live to tell about it. The Bible says God is a consuming fire (Heb. 12:29, Duet. 4:24). This seems pretty alarming; I don’t like fires that I can’t control. If God is fire, there’s not much I can do to contain Him. Some preachers focus on this aspect of God as if God’s fire is the ultimate heavenly spanking. I used to find it confusing to reconcile the picture of God using His fire power to destroy sinners with the meek and mild Jesus who reprimanded His disciples for wanting to call down fire from heaven (Luke 9:53-55).If Jesus and the Father are one, which picture is more accurate?I finally decided to do my own study on the fire of God. It really opened my eyes to see that there are other verses in scripture that describe God’s essence as love and love as a fire, so maybe God is both fire and love. Perhaps God’s fire IS His love.

God sometimes has to take extreme measures to get people’s attention. After getting Moses’ attention with a burning bush, God sent Moses on an errand to get the Pharaoh’s attention and pretty much everyone in Egypt was scared before it was over. Many people still believe that God “punished” Pharaoh as though this was a vindictive act, but God says He used the plagues to bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt(Exodus 12:12 ). By these terrible acts, God used His power to reveal truth so people would not be deceived by false, impotent gods.

Once Moses and the children of Israel left Egypt, God presented Himself as a Pillar of Fire by night and a cloud by day (Ex. 13:21) A pillar of fire would keep people warm through the desert night and the cloud would probably shield them from the sun during the day. There were scary moments at Sinai filled with lighting and earthquakes, but it didn’t seem to scare Moses. He, who was once startled by a burning bush, eventually experienced God speaking with him face to face as a friend (Ex. 33:11). Moses even reassured the elders of Israel that they had no need to be afraid of God (Deut. 5:23-27).

The same fire that consumes sins and melts sinners (Psalm 68:2) also seems to have a soothing affect on those who are reconciled with God. As a matter of fact, God’s fire does not always consume. The burning bush didn’t turn into char. The disciples in the upper room experienced fire on their heads, but none of them got burned. Paul tells us to heap coals of fire on our enemy’s head (Romans 12:9-10, 19); surely God does not intend for us to set people’s hair on fire. When sinners experience God’s power it is often fearful. Isaiah said, “Woe is me, I am come undone, for I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips.” But then something happened that made Isaiah unafraid. An angel took a hot coal and touched it to his lips and He was calmed (Isa. 6:5-8).

Perhaps God’s everlasting fire is also His everlasting love (Jer. 31:3). Solomon calls love a blazing fire that cannot be put out (Song of Sol. 8:6,7). Isaiah later describes how the sinners in Zion are terrified but those who walk among the everlasting burnings are those who are upright in heart and do right (Isaiah 33:10-20).

So how safe IS God? Will His fiery essence consume us or heal us? I guess that depends on how close we choose to be with God. If God’s fire consumes sin, then it might seem scary to give Him access to our lives, but Abraham, Moses and the disciples all discovered that people can become friends with God. Who’s afraid of their friends? As friends of God, His fiery love will warm us and nourish us. Then we, like the righteous in Zion, will walk among the everlasting burnings and have no need to be afraid!

For Fire-walkers like us, that’s really good news!

*Pathfinder Clubs are an international organization of clubs much like scouts which include both boys and girls; their goal is to teach kids Christian values such as how to “keep a level eye” and be “a servant of God and a friend to man.”

Resting In Relationship

Sat, 20 Aug 2011 11:11:00 -0500

The other day some people got involved in a debate on someone’s status. The debate was over the Sabbath and people came out in full force to weigh in with their opinions. There were Bible verses cited and counteractive quotes and accusations of ignoring scripture. It seemed like a contest of bigger guns to see who could out quote another’s point of view and most of the guns were aimed at someone who no longer keeps a weekly Sabbath. I think it’s sad when Christians lack grace. It’s even sadder when we judge another person for their beliefs. Our beliefs are simply what we think and it’s pretty hard to think what someone else wants us to think if we chose to think for ourselves.

There seems to be an elitism or social snobbery in some Christian circles that declares “if you interpret the scripture differently than I do, then you must be ignoring the Bible.” This snobbery doesn’t stop with our personal exegesis; it also takes up issues with music, food and styles of worship. Some people act as if God has appointed them to be the conscience for others.

That’s why it’s nice to step back from petty arguments and look at the big picture. The entire Bible chronicles the story of a great war between God and Satan and every page has the potential to be used by either side. Even Christians are often used as pawns by God’s enemy to separate others from God’s love. Since none of us have seen God and there are many ways to interpret the old and new testaments, it seems a little premature to think we have all the answers. However there is one thing we can depend on and that is the character of God as manifested by Jesus. The author of Hebrews states that Jesus is the exact expression of the Father (Heb. 1:3). In the life of Jesus we can see the clearest picture of how God treats people--including His enemies.

Viewing Jesus as the gold standard frees me from needing to correct other people’s theology. If Jesus can lead me, why not let Him lead them? If Jesus showed compassion to people no matter what they have done, I am set free to love others. If Jesus said He doesn’t judge (John 12:47), I am set free from judging those who think differently than I do. If Jesus didn’t condemn His disciples for picking grain on the Sabbath (Mark 2:23-25), I am set free from judging others for how they observe or celebrate Sabbath or if they even have a Sabbath. There is something refreshing about a having a holiday with God, but who judges how their neighbors keep Thanksgiving or the Fourth of July? I’m glad Jesus came to sets us free from judging each other.

Jesus said that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath (Mark 2:27). When I look at the big picture, I see how God gave Adam and Eve the Sabbath as a gift at Creation--before there was any sin in this world (Gen. 2:2). Then I see how God set the slaves free from Egypt and mandated that they take a day off to spend time with Him (Ex. 20:2, 8-11). (This makes sense when you remember they had been slaves for 400 years and not been allowed to keep a Sabbath; such embedded slaves were used to being told what to do and would need rules.) Then I see how the religious leaders of Jesus’ day had made a labyrinth of manmade rules which included “keeping” the Sabbath (Matt. 23:4), but once again Jesus came to set people free from their cumbersome rules by showing us that God is relational.

God is not a workaholic Father who never has time to spend with His children. He came down here in the form of Jesus to eat, sleep, laugh, weep and commune with us. When I look at the big picture, I see that the Sabbath is not a mandatory or arbitrary rule, but a relationship with Jesus. The writer of Hebrews describes a Sabbath rest (Heb. 4:6-11) that embodies what it means to rest in Jesus. Just as I could never create myself in the first place, I can’t save myself-- all I can do is cooperate with what Jesus is doing in my life and rest in His promise that He who began a good work in me will finish it (Phil 1:6). Meanwhile as I struggle to incorporate that rest into my life every day, I still need a Sabbath to remind me that God before sin and after sin, still desires to have a relationship with me.

For children like us who long for relationship, that’s really good news!

No More Division

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 10:15:00 -0500

Taking sides seems to be a fact of life on this earth. Have you ever been in a family, church or ministry where a couple people have a disagreement and other people start taking sides and before you know it, there has been a great divorce? Sadly, I have seen this happen in my own family, churches I have been a part of and even in a ministry I joined for a very short time only to discover that part of the team was missing and no one was speaking to them—just about them. When I tried to intercede my attempts were futile and for some reason some of the people who taught me about tolerance and God’s super freedom and unconditional love still don’t speak to me to this day. At times like that, I just want to pull all of my hair out and shriek out that song that was so popular a few years ago by Smash Mouth, “Why can’t we be friends?”Seriously…in a world where we fight such a common enemy that gives cancer and war and starvation for so many, why can’t those of us who claim to follow Christ be friends—even when we disagree on some point?

It seems to be human nature to want others to agree with us, but if we forget to check our egos at the door, we could be in danger of taking things too personal especially if we start walling off anyone who doesn’t seem to see things our way. This is actually the history of the Christian church when you consider how people in the dark ages gave their lives for thinking outside the box, it seems we would want to encourage freedom of expression for everyone.

A month from today, my husband and I are moving to Eagle Point, Oregon. While I was looking through the facebook pages connected to the area, I discovered a page for a boy whose home is about six blocks from our new home. When he was seven he was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer that maybe forty kids a year suffer from in America. He is nine now and sadly, he will probably die before I become his neighbor. I am amazed by his courage at facing death. Yesterday, I cried when his parents blogged that he asked, “I’m gonna die, ain’t I?” Oh how I wish God would send a miracle today and heal him instantly. But it seems like God is sending another miracle—a community united in love. The people of Eagle Point and Medford and many from across the country have rallied around this family. People of all faiths, all income levels and all ages have come together to encourage one little boy who only dreamed of having what most of us have already experienced—a chance to grow up.

We shudder in horror at what cancer has stolen from our own loved ones, but there is a cancer that is more evil--that cancer that separates and divides and elevates one person above another until those who seem healthy can no longer have a relationship. I think separation among God’s people is worse than cancer. People all around us are dying for the knowledge of the truth about God’s love while as Christians, we kid ourselves that we can just shut people out and walk away when we disagree with them. Everybody wants and needs grace, but how many of us are willing to give it?

I think Jesus approves of the people of Eagle Point for coming together to encourage and help this family. Someone added a poem to a picture on his wall:

What Cancer Cannot Do

Author: Unknown

Cancer is so limited...
It cannot cripple love.
It cannot shatter hope.
It cannot corrode faith.
It cannot eat away peace.
It cannot destroy confidence.
It cannot kill friendship.
It cannot shut out memories.
It cannot silence courage.
It cannot reduce eternal life.
It cannot quench the Spirit.

Unfortunately, selfishness can do all the things that cancer cannot do. That’s why God’s kingdom is all about love and unity. While He was on earth, Jesus prayed to the Father and asked that we would all be one just as He and the Father are one. To help us learn to love each other--that’s why Jesus came to live and die among us—to make us one. That’s the true meaning of at-one-ment. Who's willing to become one?

Jesus Weeps

Sat, 23 Jul 2011 07:48:00 -0500

It’s been a sad week. It started with three hikers from a Christian youth group going over the falls to their deaths in Yosemite Park. We could judge them for crossing the barrier, but they were just young people trying to take a cool picture with their friends and who of us hasn’t done something dangerous and escaped to tell about it? I don’t think for one minute they deserved it—they were young and probably didn’t have any idea how slippery the rocks were and how swift the current was until it was too late. How many of us have ignored the warnings of life? It is only by God’s grace than any of us still have a life.

The first sadness came from failure to follow the rules, but the week ended with an even more sinister event. A man dressed in a false security uniform called innocent and unsuspecting teenagers to gather around him at a political youth camp, before he began shooting them. He claimed to be someone who would protect them, but he was really the enemy.

My heart weeps as I read these stories and I believe that God Himself is weeping. Jesus wept when Lazarus died--even though He knew he was going to raise him back to life in the next few minutes. Like Mary and Martha, our hearts cry out to Jesus asking why? Where was God and why didn’t He prevent these tragic events? Most likely, Jesus is weeping now with all the friends and family of the young people who are dying in every corner of the world. I believe Jesus weeps because it breaks His heart that there is even such a thing as betrayal and death. Death was never in God’s plan; it entered the world through sin. Friends of Jesus know that He conquered death, so we know that this life isn’t the end. We know that He will raise those young people up again and if there was any part of them that longed to know God and love others, they will be reunited with their loved ones again.

How do I know for sure that God was not responsible for these tragedies? Because the book of Job explains how the devil attacks even good people and tries to snuff out their lives. And when Jesus taught His disciples to pray, He told them to pray for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven--if God’s will were already being done such a prayer would be unnecessary.

Paul tells us in Romans 8 that not even death can separate us from the love of God:

“For I am convinced that neither DEATH nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

For mourners like us, that’s really good news!

Let’s join with Jesus and His friends by praying for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Finding God In Broken Places

Sun, 17 Jul 2011 18:19:00 -0500

A ten year old boy kicks at the grass and stares at his feet as one by one his friends are picked for baseball teams. He knows he will be chosen last, even after the girls. A knot grows tighter in his gut when he overhears the name-calling that leads to a deep sense of shame about his abilities and identity. “Where is God,” he wonders, “when everyone seems to reject me?”

A seven year old girl cries alone in her room, nursing wounds in her heart that cut deeper than the bruises on her body. She resolves to try even harder next time to keep Daddy happy so he won’t have to beat her. If only she could learn to keep her mouth shut in church. “Where is God?” she cries, “and is He just as scary as Daddy and the preachers say He is?”

Where is God when the painful realities of life in this broken world come crashing in? Does He see? Does He care? Why doesn’t He do something about our pain? These are the kinds of questions that can lead some to abandon their faith entirely. I believe these are exactly the kinds of questions that God wants us to ask. Psalm 106:44 tellsus that God hears and answers when we cry to Him.

Recently I was going through some old photos and the memories and emotions from childhood flooded over me with unexpected force. The shame and misery of that long-ago playground was almost overwhelming. At first I wanted to lash out in anger, but soon my cry went up to God’s throne. “Where were you, Jesus?” His answer came back in a clear and surprising way. God brought this scripture to my mind.

He was hated and rejected by people.
    He had much pain and suffering.|
People would not even look at him.
   He was hated, and we didn't even notice him.
But he took our suffering on him
    and felt our pain for us.
We saw his suffering
    and thought God was punishing him.
But he was wounded for the wrong we did;
    he was crushed for the evil we did.
The punishment, which made us well, was given to him,
and we are healed because of his wounds.  -Isaiah 53:3-5 NCV

The wonderful truth about God is that He identifies with us in our suffering. He is not far away in some distant place, but intimately close. The sufferings that Jesus went through were for us… they were OUR sufferings. That means that there is NOTHING you or I have gone through that God Himself has not also experienced!

When I realized that truth, I was humbled and restored to love and trust. That’s the power of His healing love.

For wounded children like us, that’s very good news!

Are We Tethered Down or Flying High?

Sat, 09 Jul 2011 15:56:00 -0500

It was a perfect summer morning for a walk on the beach. The sky was filled with kites darting back and forth in the breeze. As I watched them rising and falling I started to think about what it would be like to be a kite. On the one hand, you are tethered down to earth, and yet you are free to float where the wind takes you. If that were me, would I focus on the string holding me down or on the exhilaration of riding high and enjoying the view?

For many of us it’s easier to keep our focus on what we perceive to be God’s limitations on our freedoms. His law seems like a boundary that exists just to keep us from going where we want and doing as we please. If He would just lay off with all those restrictive “Thou shalts”, life would be full of unlimited potential. Is that really the case? Do God’s laws hold us back, or allow us to rise up?

Consider the case of a sick patient in the hospital. The doctor writes orders (commands) for her care that may at times seem restrictive. She has the freedom to follow these orders and move toward life and freedom or to ignore them and let the disease process run its course. I believe that’s how it is with God’s law. We are born infected with self-centeredness (sin) and His law of love is the remedy – demonstrated perfectly in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. As God in human skin, Jesus distilled God’s commands down to their essence: loving God and loving each other. (Matthew 22:37-39)

Going back to the kite analogy, if we don’t have a solid string to anchor us, the wind will just carry us away and we will either fall to earth or be torn by a tree or power line. Boundaries in life give us structure, safety and support. As our reliance on God and His prescription for living grows deeper we are able to soar higher into stronger winds. When we live like that, the winds of adversity only help us to rise higher!

Let me be clear. I don’t believe that living within God’s law of love EARNS us anything. Every bit of life is a gift from God and even the ability to trust Him is a gift of His grace. But when we can learn to see His guidance as a blessing instead of a restriction our trust will deepen so that we can ride the updrafts and live out the truth of the promise of Isaiah 40:31:

“But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles.”

For free spirits like us, that’s really good news!

A Marriage Made For Three

Fri, 24 Jun 2011 13:24:00 -0500

Twenty one years ago today, I woke up to a blue sky without a cloud in it. I was surrounded by family, friends and coworkers as I walked down the aisle to join my life with Raleigh’s. I had no idea what I was getting into. Neither did he. We liked each other from the first and by the time we committed to each other, we really believed we loved each other. Looking back, I have no idea what we were thinking. My family had been completely enmeshed, his had been disconnected. I was codependent, he preferred isolation. I liked having people over, he hates big family gatherings. I could go on, but I think you get the picture.

It would be nice to say we had accomplished this and completed that and now we could sit pretty on the world stage as the perfect example of what a marriage should be like, but that will never happen. We have wrestled with God, families and each other. It’s become apparent that we didn’t even know ourselves twenty one years ago. We were trying to be what other people thought we should be but it really wasn’t working out for us. Early in our marriage we actually had a few bouts of domestic violence of breaking doors and punching fists in walls and bouncing checks. There was unfaithfulness. (Does it really matter who? Aren’t we all unfaithful somewhere?) There was financial ruin and a great stress to overcome the insanity from our past. Maybe someone is disgusted because of the messiness of our marriage--but the human condition is messy and I might add hopeless without God.

As I write this, we are in harmony with each other. I am in love with my husband and would walk down that aisle all over again even after all I’ve disclosed to you. But before you applaud us, I have to tell you the truth about our success; there is another person in our marriage. Yes, He is the one who is faithful enough for all of us. He is the one who has strength in our weakness. He is the one who shows us by example how the most powerful being in the universe uses His power by washing the feet of even His enemies. There is a song a friend sang at our wedding that’s reminded us over and over again that there were three in our marriage. When we struggle to see beyond ourselves, we look to Him. He is faithful, He is kind, He is love. Thank you Jesus, for Your never ending love that erases our pain and fills us with peace.

"Each time he said, "My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness." So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me." 1 Corinthians 12:9

For hopeless and unfaithful lovers like us, that's really good news!

Truth and Grace

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 16:24:00 -0500

When I was a kid, I liked to get up early while my dad was still eating breakfast. He usually greeted me with a cheery good morning and always offered me some of the pancakes or muffins he’d made for breakfast. I cherish those moments with my father. For just a few minutes before the cares of day stole his time and before the rest of the family divided his attention, I enjoyed having my dad to myself. He might share something interesting from the paper or tell me what his next project was. It didn’t matter what we talked about--it was just comforting to know that Daddy would be up early to fix breakfast and I was always welcome to join him.

My friend Sam has a completely different memory of breakfast with his father. His dad would buy a dozen donuts and eat the entire box in front of him. Even if Sam and his brothers asked for one, they were not given any. Their house rarely had groceries so not only did Sam struggle to watch his father eat those donuts, but there was no other food in the house to feed his growling stomach. It’s been decades, but Sam still hurts when he remembers his father’s selfish breakfast. To this day, Sam’s father maintains that it was Sam’s own fault that he never got any donuts because Sam wouldn’t clean up his room. Sam loves his father, but such memories cripple him from being close to his father today. Sam’s father probably doesn’t realize how his inability to take responsibility for his own behavior has infected the wounds of his son.

Physical abuse eventually fades, but emotional bruises often remain on the heart for years. There is an old cliché that says, “To forgive and forget.” If only it were that simple, but forgiving is not a legal transaction, it’s a matter of the heart. When the heart is bruised it takes more than will power to heal and it certainly does not want to forget. This Sunday many Americans will be trying to follow the Bible’s command to honor their fathers, but how can they honor those who have abused them or beaten them or ignored them since birth? How do we honor a father who has shown no concern for our emotional health?

We can honor them by remembering the good things our fathers did. We can honor our Father in heaven by how we treat our own children and any other children we are in relationship with. I have a friend who tells her kids, “I’m sorry, I messed up.” What a gift she is giving them. When she takes responsibility for her own mistakes she is setting them free from the baggage of her shame.

The life of Jesus demonstrates two important ingredients for healing emotional wounds—truth and grace. Truth allows us to see what happened and realize who is responsible, but truth without grace is brutal. All of us have sinned and made mistakes. We need grace to release us from revenge so that we can forgive ourselves and forgive those who hurt us. It is impossible to forgive and heal what has not been acknowledged. Sometimes when our parents are gone or refuse to acknowledge what they have done it seems almost impossible to forgive. But forgiving is not to set others free as much as it sets us free. When people don’t admit their mistakes; they are asking for grace without truth. Grace without truth impedes the ability for those who were hurt to let go of the past. In order for all parties to heal there must be truth admitted and grace given. Many adult children and their parents are unable to resolve issues because they refuse to apply truth and grace together.

Jesus demonstrated these principles throughout His life but two of the most obvious stories involve women who were sinners. The first was the woman at the well. When Jesus spoke the truth about her life, she ran to tell the whole village, “Here is a man who told me everything I have ever done.” Did she have a life to be proud of? Not likely, but because Jesus shared truth and grace together, she was set free. The other story is the woman caught in adultery. Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you, now go and leave your life of sin.” That’s truth and grace in a nutshell. We all need both. How healed we’ll be when we apply truth and grace to all of our relationships.

For truth seekers and grace seekers like us, that’s really good news!

* For a deeper understanding of this concept read “Changes That Heal” by Dr. Henry Cloud

Storyville

Fri, 10 Jun 2011 12:18:00 -0500

Everyone has a story. Life on this earth is rarely fair and truth often is stranger than fiction. Sometimes it is hard to know who to believe. Even siblings have different stories based on their birth order and interactions with other family members. When I started to write down my story it was like playing detective in my own life. Just by writing out the timeline of where I’ve lived and what happened each year of my life; I began to see that I have not always understood the truth about my own circumstances. At times I found it surprising. I wonder if that’s what it was like for Jesus.

As our Creator, Jesus had all power and knowledge (Jeremiah 32:27, Matt. 19:26). When He set aside His God super-powers and became human, Jesus took on our human infirmities (Heb. 4:15). I wonder what it was like for Him to wake up and find His created creatures changing His diapers and holding Him when He cried. I wonder how long it took for Him to know exactly who He is. There must have been times in His life when He heard what others said about His mother. I wonder if He had to investigate the circumstances of His own birth to find out the truth of the ages. I wonder what it was like when little Jesus discovered that He is indeed the Creator and Son of God. Apparently it happened by the time He was twelve because after his parents lost him and searched for him for three days, He told His mother that He must be about His “Father’s business” (Luke 2:49).

As an adult, Jesus dealt with Satan’s lies when He was tempted by His enemy in the wilderness. Then He refuted the lies of the super religious who looked so good on the outside. By then Jesus recognized that He could read the inside of people’s hearts and He spent His life revealing truth to everyone He met.

Even today although His life has been established there are people who question the situations surrounding Jesus’ birth, death and resurrection. They wonder if Jesus really was God or a child born out of wedlock and a homeless man who died the death of criminal. There is more than one way to look at every story but what really matters is to get down to the truth. Jesus values truth so much that He named Himself “THE TRUTH” (John 14:6).

Just as we have to examine our own lives to find the truth, we also have to examine what we thought we knew about Jesus in order to really know Him. Some of what we believed about ourselves while growing up may have been lies and accusations from God’s enemy. Some of what we think Jesus would do or say may also be lies from His enemy. When we examine the stories of our lives in the light of who Jesus tells us we are and when we listen closely to what Jesus has to say, we discover more about Him and ourselves than we ever thought possible. It is shocking to think that we have been satisfied with untruths about ourselves and even more disturbing to realize how we took Satan’s lies for granted about the life of Jesus. That’s why Jesus tells us that if we “know the truth, the truth will set us free” (John 8:32). And the truth is more than facts. Jesus said He is the TRUTH and He will set us free and if the Son sets you free you will be free indeed (John 8:36).

When it comes to overcoming Satan’s lies the Bible gives us a simple formula.

“Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying,

“Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night. And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death.” Rev. 12:10-12

It takes two stories to overcome Satan:

1. The story of Jesus blood--how He became human and overcame sin and death (remember the life is in the blood Lev. 17:14)

2. Our story—the story of how Jesus’ life has intersected the stories of your life and mine.

For storytellers like us, that’s really good news!

No Fear!

Fri, 20 May 2011 19:42:00 -0500

At first glance it might appear that the Judgment Day prediction of Pastor Harold Camping and the planned celebration of 200 atheists on the same day are a showdown between God’s spokesman and the devil’s deceived, but Bible savvy Christians are aware of at least two reasons not to believe in Camping’s predictions:

His prediction failed in 1994.
His prediction contradicts Jesus’ own words that “no man knows the day or the hour—not even the Son.” (Matthew 24:36)

The sad reality is that the atheists and Camping are both working for the same puppet master. We don’t like to judge individuals, but Jesus told us to judge people by their fruits and in this case Camping has already produced the fruit of a lie with his first failed prediction. Even though he wears the name Christian, He is no less deceived than the atheists who will toast his failed prophecy.

Unfortunately, there are many Christians like Camping who may not set dates, but use fear to warn people about God’s judgment. Their goal is to frighten people to “be ready for Jesus to come.” Even “good Christians” often feel afraid of the judgment, but when we realize that Jesus has already come once and He has offered to live in our hearts for now and has promised to never leave us, we have nothing to fear if we are a friend of His. Today and tomorrow, even through cataclysmic events, we can always rest in His presence. His words are a comfort for all who read them:

And if any man hear my sayings, and keep them not, I judge him NOT: for I came NOT to judge the world, but to save the world. (John 12:47)

For the Father judges NO ONE, but has committed all judgment to the Son. (John 5:22)

For God did NOT send His Son into the world to judge the world; but that the world should be saved through him. (John 3:17)

John, who hung out with Jesus for a few years, put it this way:

“God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”
(1 John 4:16-18)

Where can we find more love than in our friendship with Jesus? Because it is Christ’s perfect love that will cast out our fear for the Day of Judgment, the showdown is not about cataclysmic events scaring people to follow God. No, God is love and the true showdown is actually between God’s love and Satan’s reign of sin and terror. When you feel like calming your nerves with more of Christ’s perfect love read the gospels, or read 1 Corinthians 13 and replace the word love with the name of God.

“God is patient, God is kind. God does not envy, God does not boast, God is not proud. God does not dishonor others, God is not self-seeking, God is not easily angered; God keeps no record of wrongs. God does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. God always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
(Adapted version of 1 Corinthians 13:4-7)

Who doesn’t love a God like that?

For fearful friends like us, that’s really good news!

Got Armor?

Fri, 13 May 2011 20:15:00 -0500

True confession-I love a great mythic adventure tale. Most of my favorite movies contain swordplay and battles. I think it’s because of the deeper truth of the war raging around us, but when it comes down to putting on the Armor of God (Ephesians 6:13-17) I haven’t always been sure how to apply it to my real life. Here is a way to break it down:

Belt of Truth: Our identity (gender, purity, creative power) is protected by the truth of who God is and who we are in Him. We are at our most vulnerable when we listen to the lies of the enemy and start to believe that things are not as they are. For those living in bondage to these lies, Jesus the Truth will indeed set us free! (John 8:32)

Body Armor of Righteousness: Christ’s righteousness (literally doing the right thing, or justice) is ours when we enter into a trust relationship with him. (Romans 3:22, 4:3) Our hearts – the source of the wellsprings of life - are guarded by his righteousness. We can never earn it on our own.

“Good News” Shoes: What news could be better and provide more motivation to spread the word than the amazing truth that the Father is exactly as Jesus demonstrated him to be. (John 17:3-6)

Shield of Faith: Our most defensive weapon is more accurately described as trust in the God that we have come to know and love. It is never blind, but grows from our understanding of his character based on overwhelming evidence in the Bible and the history of his interactions with humankind. (Hebrews 11:1)

Helmet of Salvation: Our minds are protected by the salvation (healing) that comes from knowing what God through Jesus has done for and in us. The old pathways are literally transformed and we become new creations in Christ! (Romans 12:2)

Sword of the Spirit: We are given only one weapon to fight back against our enemy. It’s the same weapon that Jesus used when he walked among us. His words are more powerful than we realize; it is essential that we come to know them well enough to use them effectively. (Hebrews 4:12)

We should never forget that we are living in a world at war. Despite this, there is no need for fear. Our God, who is love, has thoroughly equipped each of us for every trial we will face. Knowing the truth of his gracious character will protect us from every attack the enemy can throw at us. Let’s keep spreading this beautiful message so that more brothers and sisters everywhere will be able to join us in this good fight. We already know who wins in the end.

For warriors like us, that’s very good news!

Jesus Always Tells the Truth

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 15:24:00 -0500

Jesus modeled an authentic life on this earth and He always tells the truth. He didn’t hide that he came from Nazareth on the wrong side of the tracks, or that His mother was pregnant before she was married and He never hid the fact that he grew up in a blended family with a step father and step brothers.

Jesus told the truth to His mother; when she asked Him why He stayed behind in the temple, He said it was because He needed to do His Father’s business. When she asked Him for help at the wedding, He warned her it was not yet time to reveal that He was the Messiah, before He turned water into wine. When someone said that His mother and brothers were waiting for Him, He answered honestly “Who is my mother and brothers?” This was not to disrespect His mother, but to verify the truth that He is not exclusive and welcomes all of us into His family.

Jesus told the truth to strangers. When people wanted to follow Him, He let them know that He owned nothing--not even a place to lay His head. To the person who wanted to wait and bury his aging father, Jesus declared that it is a life and death matter to follow the call when we hear it by saying, “Let the dead bury the dead.” Jesus explained to Nicodemus how being a good teacher is not enough but he must be born again. He told the Samaritan woman everything she had ever done including her sins, but He did it in such a way that instead of getting angry, she became what some consider the first Christian missionary.

Jesus told the truth to His friends—when He called disciples He asked them to leave their old life behind. When He needed to rest, He pulled away from the crowds and spent time alone with His Father. When James and John wanted to sit beside Him, Jesus warned that they had no idea what they were talking about. When Peter became the spokesman for the devil, Jesus told Satan to get behind Him. When Martha thought Mary was being lazy, Jesus said Mary had chosen the better thing. When Judas thought Mary was being wasteful, Jesus disagreed. When Philip asked to see the Father, Jesus said, “If you’ve seen Me, you’ve seen the Father.” (John 14:9)

Jesus told the truth to the church--even when it was unpopular. He compared people obsessed with external behavior to graves that were white washed and full of dead people. He told the rich young ruler that keeping the commandments was not enough unless he loved God enough to get rid of all his earthly treasures. He warned the Pharisees of pride because He knows that pride will lead us to death. He didn’t pretend to condone what happened in the temple, but overturned tables and ran out the money makers because He hates it when people misrepresent God’s kingdom.

Jesus was honest with His emotions by weeping for Lazarus. When the children waved palm branches and praised Him, He stopped the parade and showed His honest emotions by weeping over Jerusalem. When Peter didn’t want Him to wash his feet, He warned Peter that he must let Jesus wash him clean. When Judas got up to go, Jesus insinuated that He knew what Judas was about to do. When Jesus needed his friends to stay wake and support Him in prayer, He let them know His needs. When Jesus felt abandoned by His Father, He cried out, “Why have You forsaken Me?”

For everyone who sincerely asks for proof, Jesus gives it honestly. To the disciples on the road to Emmaus, Jesus proved His authority by recounting the scriptures and then, when they were ready to ask Him in and only then, did He reveal who He was. When Thomas asked for proof, Jesus took off His shirt and showed him the scars.

Never in the history of world have we seen a more honest and authentic life than that of Jesus.

“Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” John 14:6

For a generation tired of lies and scams like us, Jesus is very good news!

Proof of the Resurrection Power

Sun, 24 Apr 2011 18:28:00 -0500

It hasn’t been a hundred years yet, but there are some people who would like to tell you that the Holocaust never happened. Most historians are fully aware of the facts, but for those who heard an eyewitness account from their relatives who survived it there is no doubt that it happened. Many Americans are proud of our country’s role in ending World War II, but it doesn’t take long for history to be questioned by those who come after. Take the Cherokee Trail of Tears for instance. Hundreds of men, woman and children were displaced from their homes, called savages and treated like dogs. Apparently, treating anyone who is not like us was an American tradition in the nineteenth century because the black man, woman and child were treated like animals too. That is why we built monuments to honor those who were abused and those who gave their lives to make the world a safer place if only for awhile.

When we consider how some people doubt and question the events of the last two centuries, I can understand why people might question an event that happened two millennia ago. I have friends who wonder if Jesus really died and rose again. They want proof that Christians are not feeding them a fairy tale and it probably doesn’t help that Christians combine the resurrection story with a fictitious rabbit that delivers eggs. They say they don’t have a photo or neighbor who rode in one day and said they saw Jesus come out of the grave so how can they know it’s true? I can’t blame them for wanting proof. I don’t even think God blames them for wanting proof. But maybe they haven’t seen the proof yet.

I believe there were eyewitnesses who set up a monument so that no one would ever forget what happened that day. Those first eyewitnesses were the gospel writers. My favorite is John—John who was asked by Jesus Himself to watch over His mother. John was standing at the foot of the cross and he was definitely an eyewitness to Jesus’ death and he saw Jesus after he rose. Before John died he wrote down the memory of that moment because he knew that people would someday doubt.

Another witness is Saul who was later known as Paul. Whether Saul saw Jesus die or not, he wasn’t a believer because he held the coats of the people who stoned Jesus’ friend Stephen. Then Jesus took away his sight and got his attention and asked, “Saul why are you persecuting Me?” After his conversion Paul was one of the biggest advocates of the resurrection. Did he need to see Jesus come out of that grave to believe? Not if Jesus spoke to him afterward. Paul’s testimony is much like that of many Christians today who believes that Jesus did indeed rise out of the grave to give us new life. But how can so many be witnesses to an event they never saw? The proof in this case is not as an eyewitness of the actual event, but as an eyewitness of the resurrection power that has changed millions of lives. In this case the monument is a changed life—the miracle of new life made possible only by knowing the resurrected Jesus.

“It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive and present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, He’ll do the same thing in you as He did in Jesus, bringing you alive to Himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and He does, as surely as He did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With His Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!” Romans 8:10,11 MSG

For doubting Thomases like us, that’s really good news!

Everlasting Holy Gobstopper

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 12:58:00 -0500

As an artist, I have designed “Fruit of the Spirit” mirror frames where a peach represents gentleness and a strawberry represents love, and so on. Every time I look at the “Fruit of the Spirit” mirror hanging on my dining room wall, it reminds me of the fruit that God desires to grow in my life. While I enjoyed painting each piece of fruit, I have come to the conclusion that the fruit of the Spirit is probably more like an “Everlasting Gobstopper,” than a group of virtues that Christians collect.

People often think of patience as a virtue that will occur in a Christian’s life if we just will ourselves to be more patient, but if they are like me, they have lost their temper in the anticipation of such patience. Most of us have struggled to gain self-control over and over again with little success, but maybe we are looking at it from the wrong perspective. No peach tree strives to produce a peach and comes up with an apple; it just isn’t possible. The natural result of being a peach tree is that every peach pit holds the very code of life that God designed for it to produce. Inside my own life (which often looks much like a pit) God has placed the seed of His fruit within my heart. I have often failed to produce much fruit due to my immaturity, but the potential has been there since my re-birth in Jesus. I have often felt guilty because I didn’t have this fruit in my life—not realizing that it can only come about when I have finally realized God’s love and allowed His Spirit to produce His fruit naturally in my life.

So maybe the Spirit’s fruit is actually more like one fruit that builds on its flavor and changes with each experience as the fruit matures--like the Willie Wonka candy that changes color when it’s assimilated. Let’s imagine what that looks like:

First Love, then Joy, and then Peace

The base of the Spirit’s fruit is love. Love is the foundation of God’s eternal law and none of the other so called fruit can be produced without the very basic DNA of love. When we recognize God’s love through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, it transforms us from the inside out. God’s perfect love brings joy in its wake. Joy does not mean happy (the root of which is happenstance) but is logical reaction to wonder of God’s love. Joy never replaces love, but simply builds another dimension to the base ingredient of love. Once we feel secure in God’s love and have experienced joy in His presence, the more complex layer of peace comes as the direct result of our being restored back to harmony with our Creator.

Patience leads to Kindness and Goodness

Once we have allowed God’s Spirit to fill us with His love, joy and peace, we naturally have more patience because we remember that we are loved and love allows us to be patient when things do not go as we planned. Patience in turn, allows us to be kinder to other people. Accepting God’s gift of peace allows us to be patient in traffic jams and breeds the deeper distinction of kindness in our fruit as we pray for those who cut us off. Living out this fruitful layer of kindness can only come about when we have first experienced God’s love, joy, peace and patience. Have you ever known someone who was kind, yet impatient, or patient without love? It is really a conflict of terms. True goodness can only come about when we become kind and patient on top of our fruitful layers of love, joy and peace.

Faithfulness, then Gentleness and Self-control

When we allow God to give us patience, kindness and goodness, we become more faithful. As we taste and see that our God is good we become more committed to Him and to the other people in our lives. When we realize how God has been faithful to us, we begin to be gentle with others. Self-control is impossible for us to imagine when we feel judged, instead of loved. Now, instead of condemning those who don’t have self-control, we choose to love them unconditionally instead--which will allow them to experience the base level of fruit--God’s unconditional love-- which is the only way that any of us can make that first step toward having the fruit of the Spirit in our lives.

It is only through experiencing God’s love, joy and peace and all the layers of fruit that follow, that we can finally find self control. This is not a guilt inflicted; shame induced, white knuckling control, but rather a true control of self that can only be produced when the conditions are right. For the mature Spiritual fruit there must be the complex nuances and flavors of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and gentleness and then, and only then, will the Spirit set us free by teaching us to control self. But none of this will happen unless we at first hear the Spirit’s call to realize God’s magnificent love; I guess that is why it is called the “Fruit of the Spirit”—when the Spirit dwells in our heart, we automatically begin to produce this amazing fruit in our character. And if we sometimes fail to produce it, we have to go back to beginning and look at the love of Jesus once again to allow the Spirit to retrain our thoughts so that we can see how love leads us back into joy and peace and so on.

Oh taste and see that the Lord is good! Against these things there is no law.

For Spirit temples like us, that’s really good news!

We're Saved! Or Are We?

Sat, 26 Feb 2011 14:51:00 -0600

Hailey was a very brave, very sick little girl. Much of her life had been filled with hospital stays, painful tests and procedures and restrictions on where she could go and what she could do. Hailey had Leukemia, a disease that ate away at her blood cells and robbed her of her natural immunity. She was on a bone marrow transplant list, but no match had been found. Without this remedy, Hailey would die before she reached adulthood.

When the news arrived that a donor had been found, her family and friends all celebrated. Hailey was saved! Or was she? Is salvation in the act of finding a donor, transfusing the blood marrow, or the actual transformation of her blood cells and restoration of health to her body?

I’ve often heard people ask these questions about our eternal fate: Have we been saved? Are we being saved? Will we be saved?

Which question is correct? That depends on our understanding of salvation. Perhaps a little etymology will shed some light. Every Greek word the New Testament translates as Save, Saved or Salvation comes from the root word “sozo”, which means to restore something broken or to heal. We can even see the same meaning in the Latin root of the word “salvo” as in a salve that heals. Jesus alluded to this fact when He told the Pharisees “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Mark 2:17, NIV)

Perhaps taking a look at salvation as healing might give us peace from the questions and doubts that often plague our minds. I believe that the answer to all our questions about salvation is a resounding YES!

We HAVE BEEN saved because the broken relationship with our Father has been healed by Jesus restoring us to trust so we will come to Him for the remedy.

We ARE BEING saved as Jesus applies that remedy (His perfect life) to heal us from the infection of sin (selfishness) so that His law (character) will be written on our hearts.

And we WILL SOMEDAY BE completely healed and restored with not only a perfectly loving and selfless heart, but a redeemed body, free from the ravages of sin.

No matter what the world might say about us, if we know Jesus we can take heart in the “already” and the “not yet” in this promise:

“That's exactly who we are: children of God. And that's only the beginning. Who knows how we'll end up! What we know is that when Christ is openly revealed, we'll see him—and in seeing him, become like him.” (1 John 3:2, MSG)

For sick children like us, that’s incredibly good news!

Friends for Jesus

Sat, 19 Feb 2011 14:12:00 -0600

Ten years ago, we went a retreat with some friends in Washington State. We started by taking a spiritual gifts inventory and discovering our individual spiritual gifts, then we wrote down all the gifts within our group of friends on a white board. No one was sure what to do about it but it was apparent that we had gifts among us that we were not using. We decided to pray about it and went home. A day or two later, one of our friends Grace called me because she felt called to create a youth service at our church and use our gifts to create a program. I had experienced a similar service as a kid growing up and so we created what we later called Heart 2 Heart—a service that last several years allowing younger people and their families to take part in music, drama and friendship with others. I share this because such a focus on spiritual gifts has been rare in my church experience. Over and over, I have gone to churches where the only thing that really happens is the worship service once a week and the younger members have left for parts unknown.

Last night I was thrilled to be a part of a group seeking to develop art of all kinds to share Jesus with others in our community and also as a form of worship to our God. The leader of this group discussed how our worship is not contained to what happens in the church service--the worship service is actually the fruit of a life that is worshipping God 24/7.

So how are you worshipping God every day? How are you using your own spiritual gifts to spread the Good News? If you aren’t sure what your spiritual gifts are, I believe that is a hidden treasure that your Heavenly Father has yet for you to discover. He created you as an individual to have a voice—to sing, to write, to pray, to draw, to paint, to befriend someone today. I speak of friendship as a gift because ultimately, when Jesus told us to go and make disciples; He was telling us to go out and make friends with people and in turn help them to become friends with God. Knocking on doors and street preaching may not be for everyone but making friends one at a time is within our reach.

When anyone is joined to Christ, he is a new being; the old is gone, the new has come. All this is done by God, who through Christ changed us from enemies into his friends and gave us the task of making others his friends also. Our message is that God was making all mankind his friends through Christ. God did not keep an account of their sins, and he has given us the message which tells how he makes them his friends.

Here we are, then, speaking for Christ, as though God himself were making his appeal through us. We plead on Christ’s behalf: let God change you from enemies into his friends. -2 Corinthians 5:17-20, GNB.

Isn’t wonderful to know that God created our gifts and longs for us to be connected to other people and join them in friendship with Him?

For friendly people like us, that is really good news!

A Love to Kill For

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 16:16:00 -0600

Vanessa* and Joe* worked at a furniture factory in the mid-eighties. It was my first real job and Vanessa was the secretary. She was a very kind person and had a lot of friends. Even though I was a young naive girl with no experience and little confidence in myself, Vanessa kindly assured me that all I had to do was fill out the forms and go through the interview and I could probably get a job for a whopping $4.25 an hour. It was one of the highest paying student jobs around, so I took her advice and got the job.

I had weird vibes about Joe—especially when he asked my younger sister (who was also new to town) to go for a walk in the dark one night. When she hesitated, he applied more pressure until she agreed to go. I felt that if he really wanted to date my sister he should at least take her out where people could see them. My sister was naive and unsure of how to handle him. We had quite an argument when she got back. She said she didn’t like him, that he was pushy and she wasn’t sure how to say no.

A year or two went by. Vanessa (who was married) remained friendly with Joe. He tried to get her to spend time with him and although I never spoke to her about it, I saw that he was very controlling and persuasive. One day, Joe rode into town with a stranger. He said he was going to see his girlfriend and talked about Vanessa as though he was in love with her.

The man dropped Joe off in front of Vanessa’s house with no idea that he was concealing a gun in his jacket. Joe walked up to Vanessa’s door and rang the bell. When she opened it, he shot and killed her because she wouldn’t leave her husband for him.

As people read the papers that week they shook their heads. With hindsight, anyone with any understanding of love knew that Joe’s so called love was selfish. No loving father would want his daughter to marry a man that was so demanding as to say, “Love me or I’ll kill you!” I thanked God at the time that my sister was safe, but Vanessa had been a friend to me. I felt disgusted that her beautiful life was cut short by the selfishness of someone who claimed to love her.

Some people say God loves like Joe loved--that He offers us gifts and begs us to love Him, until one day He will pull the trigger if we don’t comply. Actually, some think he will do even worse because they say God will torch us—some say to suffer for eternity, others say to suffer for a few days. Either way, such behavior goes against everything I’ve read in the Bible about love.

Some say that because God is sovereign He can do whatever He wants. I absolutely believe that God is sovereign, but why would He come down here and share our painful life with us just to control us? God could have controlled us with much less pain to Himself. No, there must be a deeper meaning for Jesus’ life on this earth than for God to display His power over us. I believe such images of a controlling, murdering, God are part of the enemy’s lies in the war between God and Satan.

There are verses that say God will burn people forever, but we have the knowledge today to decipher the original language and we have deeper understanding of the world that they were written in. Remember Paul once thought that it was okay to kill the Christians. He even held the coats of the people who stoned Stephen, but does such behavior match the actions of Jesus throughout the gospels? Apparently, Paul changed his mind by the time he penned the words “Love does not seek its own way,” in 1 Corinthians 13.

Where do we see Jesus forcing or killing any sinners? Hebrews 1:3 tells us that Jesus “is the exact expression of the Father.” So the Father must treats sinners in the same way that Jesus treats sinners. If this is true, then how can we make sense of God’s actions throughout the Old Testament?

If this is a new thought for you, take some time to pray about it and study it out. This is not a question that can be answered in a single day. Feel free to email us with questions.

Controlling our behavior through forced obedience is not God's purpose--whether it is credited to Him or not. The Good News is that God loves us so much that He has been willing to be misunderstood. When we look at the big picture and study all sixty six books of the Bible, we begin to put the puzzle pieces together. Then we begin to see that God is love and all that He does is done in love—not out of selfish love like Joe, but other-centered love for the human race like Jesus.

For people like us who don’t like being forced and controlled, this is really good news!

*I changed their names